The Professional

A Spenser Novel

By: Robert B. Parker

Narrated by: Joe Mantegna

A knock on Spenser's office door can only mean one thing: a new case. This time the visitor is a local lawyer with an interesting story. Elizabeth Shaw specializes in wills and trusts at the Boston law firm of Shaw & Cartwright, and over the years she's developed a friendship with wives of very wealthy men. However, these rich wives have a mutual secret: they've all had an affair with a man named Gary Eisenhower- and now he's blackmailing them for money. Shaw hires Spenser to make Eisenhower "cease and desist," so to speak, but when women start turning up dead, Spenser's assignment goes from blackmail to murder.

As matters become more complicated, Spenser's longtime love, Susan, begins offering some input by analyzing Eisenhower's behavior patterns in hopes of opening up a new avenue of investigation. It seems that not all of Gary's women are rich. So if he's not using them for blackmail, then what is his purpose? Spenser switches tactics to focus on the husbands, only to find that innocence and guilt may be two sides of the same coin.

Another wonderful Spencer book

As with an earlier reviewer I, too, have been reading the Spencer books for a very long time. I have either read or listened to them all from the first book and have always enjoyed them for what they are - light reading with an interesting story to tell, but with no serious moral issues at stake.

I would not normally have reviewed this book since I have not reviewed any of the previous Audible Spencer books I have listened to, but was convinced to do so by some of the negative reviews I saw. Robert B Parker was a master of the short sentence and short chapter. His books are full of "He said" and "She said", but they are at the core of his writing style and, over time, I have become so wrapped up in the story and the characters that I no longer even notice. Rather it is the regular characters in the book, their relationships with each other and the underlying humor that have made these books so enjoyable, at least for me. Add to that an interesting story, the process of unraveling what actually happened and who did it and the masterful reading of Joe Mantegna and you have a pleasant couple of days of listening.

I enjoy these books so much that I often listen to them again when I want to spend a couple of days just relaxing. For me, the pleasure is in the listening and light humor more than in the "who-dun-it". If you are looking for the Maltese Falcon, you are not going to find it here. I, for one, am truly going to miss seeing more of these books since Mr. Parker recently died and I assume there is no one to continue the series.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who just wants a pleasant relaxed read, but I would also recommend that they start with some of the earlier books since much of the pleasure from the book involves the relations between the characters and that is something that you need some history to understand.

Lots of twists

Always a great story from Mr. Parker! Enjoyed this throughly. Spenser novels are the best for listening to as we travel.

Disappointing final book

I have been an avid Spenser fan and mourn the death of Robert Parker. Unfortunately, his last entry into the series was a bit of a disappointment to me. First, let me say the positive, Joe Mantegna does his usual, excellent performance. He has become Spenser to me much like Dick Hill is Jack Reacher and Len Cariou is Harry Bosch, other favorites of mine. The story itself leaves much to be desired.

I actually found the plot quite boring. With the exception of the regulars, the new characters were so vacuous that I could not care less about their stories and if they lived or died. There was no suspense or tension as Spenser, Hawk and Susan were never in any danger and were pretty peripheral. There was essentially no action whatsoever. Finally, there seemed to be inordinately long stretches where all that was going on was Spenser and Susan dissecting the meaning of love and their relationship. It almost seems as if Mr. Parker realized this would be his final entry and was writing this to someone close to him.

Thank you Mr. Parker for all of the pleasure you have brought to us in the past. I will miss the regular entries into this entertaining series of books.

Reader does a great job

The reader does a great job and the book is very entertaining. It's on my better book list.

Heard Parts of this on XM Book Radio

Would you consider the audio edition of The Professional to be better than the print version?

I got into listening to this story on XM Book Radio. Unfortunately they only played an hour at a time and I was missing chapters. I like the way Joe Montagna reads the story. I agree with some of the others about the