Wonderland

I’m reading the latest Spenser novel, Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland, by Ace Atkins. Atkins is now taking up where Parker left off nearly four years ago, giving us new Spenserian adventures with all the folks in Spenserland—Hawk (the indomitable one), Susan Silverman (the ageless shrink with not a hint of a wrinkle), Henry Cimoli (Spenser’s gym owner friend), Gino Fish (the hoodlum), Vinnie Morris (the hoodlum gunsel that Spenser sometimes calls on to back his play), Frank Belson (the equally ageless Boston cop), and Zebulon Sixkill (the Native American alcoholic whom Spenser befriended in the previous Atkins endeavor, Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby). And just as it was with Parker, these people never seem to age. I’m still trying to figure out where I stand with these faux Parkers. This Spenser adventure is the second by Atkins, and the Jesse Stone sagas are now being written by Michael Brandman. Are they good enough to continue reading or are they just a way to taper off from all the stuff Parker wrote (38 Spensers, 9 Jesse Stones, 6 Sunny Randalls, 4 Cole/Hitch westerns). I don’t think so. Ace Atkins may paint Spenser just a little too cute, too much the wise guy that Parker first created half a century ago. I’ll miss him and his Frostian references, his culinary skills, his admirable attachment to Susan, his duels with the Boston mob. But if I want the real Spenser, I’ll just go back and reread the thirty-eight by Robert B. Parker himself. And what about the Jesse Stones that Brandman is now penning? I think I’d rather just wait for Tom Selleck to reprise the role on television.

And here are the kids again. I’m just like a doting parent who can’t stop talking about his adorable kids, can’t stop taking pictures of them in adorable poses. Can’t stop showing these pics to anyone and everyone I bump into.