Is it still the sincerest form of flattery when imitation is of yourself? Ask crime fiction writer Robert B. Parker, whose latest novel, Family Honor—his first to feature a woman private eye— bears more than a passing resemblance to his 1981 work Early Autumn.
Family Honor by Robert B. Parker (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, $22.95)
Both books send a Boston sleuth (Parker’s well-known Spenser in the original, sexy newcomer Sunny Randall in Honor) to the rescue of an unloved 15-year-old. In this new tale, the gone girl is Millicent Patton, daughter of upper-crusters Betty and Brock Patton. It doesn’t take long for Sunny to locate and liberate her quarry from the clutches of an oleaginous pimp. But Millicent refuses to return to her “creepy” parents. Concerned that the Pattons’ domestic affairs aren’t just dysfunctional, but dangerous, Sunny takes the teenager under her wing (just as Spenser protected young Paul Giacomin in Autumn) until she can figure out what the girl is afraid of at home.
She learns that before hitting the streets, Millicent overheard her mother and a local Irish thug named Cathal Kragan discussing how to murder somebody. Now Kragan wants the girl dead, and he has no compunction about making Sunny a collateral casualty. For protection, Sunny turns to her mob-connected ex-husband and a malevolent gay restaurateur. She’ll need their help because, as it turns out, Millicent is just part of a much larger, more tawdry case involving pornographic photos, banker Brock Patton’s plans to become the Republican governor of Massachusetts, and a mob boss’ efforts to expand his New England franchise.
By the time Honor runs its course, Sunny has not only saved Millicent’s butt, but compelled her self-obsessed parents (just as Spenser forced the Giacomins in Autumn) to pay their child’s bills while otherwise staying out of her life. For her own good.
These similarities shouldn’t suggest, however, that Family Honor isn’t worth reading. On the contrary, it’s more interesting than 90 percent of the books the prolific Parker has penned over the last decade. Credit the quality mostly to Sunny Randall, a smart, 34-year-old, divorced former cop who paints, barely endures her disapproving mother, and (unlike kitchen whiz Spenser) can’t cook to save her own bacon. Like Spenser, she’s full of wisecracks and sarcasm, but coming from her, these lines sound witty rather than fat with machismo. Especially entertaining are Sunny’s comments about the difficulties of being a woman P.I. “One of the bad things,” she remarks early on, “is figuring out where to carry the gun. . . . My sister Elizabeth suggested that I had plenty of room to carry the gun in my bra. I have never much liked Elizabeth.
