Melancholy Baby

A Sunny Randall Novel

Last night, far too late last night, I read the new Robert Parker book cover to cover. I can't remember what book was the first one I ever read like that, in one sitting but I think that if I had been encouraged to do that more that I might have read more.

This one is as good as any of the other Sunny Randall books, although for a few pages I thought I had read it before. Somehow Sunny seems to wind up with the client living in her loft fairly often. I admit to being predisposed to liking these stories. If the count I saw today is accurate I've read something like 40 Spenser, Jesse Stone, & Sunny Randall books all together.

I was a little bit disturbed with the way the book started. Sonny's ex Ritchie has just remarried. Parker had worked some parallel constructions for the main characters and their relationships. Spenser and Susan, Jesse and his ex-wife (Jenn I think), and Sonny and Ritchie, all of them bound together and yet unable to be together for some unexplained reason. So Ritchie's new wife breaks this format a little. I guess this is ok though, as some of the other character development more than makes up for it. Sonny goes to therapy in this book, and her therapist turns out to be Susan. Since I read the first Jesse Stone I have been wondering when the grand unifying Parker novel will be written. Something where seemingly unrelated PI cases bring both Spenser and Sunny into Jesse's jurisdiction. The other books have always been on the edge of this. Jesse Stone has met Glen Healy, and Sonny has met Tony Marcus both of whom are from the Spenser books. This time Sonny meets Belson and spends quite a bit of time with Susan. It really tied things closer together between all the stories. I guess I'll have to wait a little longer for the Parker 3-way story, but this little taste reinforces my thought that it will be great if he ever writes it.

Anyway, its a good book and you should check it out - although you might want to read 31 Spenser books first, and you might not want to start this one at 1:00 in the morning.