Spenser

Spenser: For Hire – Original Sin

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Spenser: For Hire – Original Sin
  • IMDb: link

Spenser for Hire - Original Sin television review

For Throwback Tuesday we turn we turn our attention back to the mean streets of Boston. A pushy Catholic priest (Jay O. Sanders) guilts Spenser (Robert Urich) into investigating the death of a young girl who was about to become a nun. No one, includin the girl’s parents (Elizabeth Franz and Eddie Jones) and Spenser himself, wants him on the case which uncovers the fact that the young woman was pregnant and gets Spenser squared off against local scumbag Tommy Flaherty (David O’Brien) evicting people from property in dispute with ties to the archdiocese. Spenser’s run-in with Flaherty puts him temporarily at odds with Hawk (Avery Brooks), but his decision to save Spenser from a bullet shows where his friend’s loyalty’s truly lie (although, to be safe, Spenser does call in a favor to make sure Hawk is sidelined when it comes time to confront Flaherty).

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Spenser: For Hire – Children of a Tempest Storm

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Spenser: For Hire – Children of a Tempest Storm
  • IMDb: link

Spenser for Hire - Children of a Tempest Storm television review

Our Throwback Tuesday takes us back to 80s Boston for another episode of Spenser: For Hire. “Children of a Tempest Storm” is an early stand-out episode featuring a pair of stories without easy answers or simple solutions. The episode opens with Spenser (Robert Urich) killing a small-time hitman only to discover the man had left a pair of young children (Noah Moazezi and Judith Tannen) behind who Spenser decides to temporarily take-in until a long-term solution. Over the course of the episode several other attempts on Spenser’s life will be made which our intrepid gumshoe eventually tracks back to the incarcerated King Powers (Chuck Connors) who, even from behind bars, is looking to take his revenge. The storyline ends in true Spenser style with the P.I. blackmailing the criminal to get money for the orphans and stop having to dodge bullets from every hitman attempting to make good on the contract on Spenser’s head.

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Spenser: For Hire – The Choice

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Spenser for Hire – The Choice
  • IMDb: link

Spenser for Hire - The Choice

For Throwback Thursday we turn the clock back to take a look at another episode of Spenser: For Hire. In “The Choice” Spenser‘s (Robert Urich) five-minutes of fame make the private detective a target for a pair of young sociopaths (Patricia Clarkson and Sam Robards) looking to up the game which until this point has included killing homeless victims no one has missed. Toying with the detective proves to be just the thing. Even after the pair kill a friend of Hawk‘s (Avery Brooks) in front of Spenser, he finds it difficult to get either the police or the girl’s father to take the situation seriously.

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Spenser: For Hire – Promised Land

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Spenser for Hire – Promised Land
  • IMDb: link

“You can’t save the world.”

Spenser for Hire - Promised Land

The year was 1985 and private detective shows were in vogue. The decade saw shows like Magnum, P.I., Remington Steele, Moonlighting, Matt Houston, Simon & Simon, Mike Hammer, Jake and the Fatman, Partners in Crime, and others all hit the airwaves. One of those shows was Spenser for Hire. My introduction into the world of Robert B. Parker‘s Boston private investigator came not from one of the author’s novels but the television show based on them. And I’ve been a fan ever since.

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Wonderland

/ / Books & Magazines

WonderlandWonderland marks the second Spenser novel written by Ace Atkins following the death of the character’s creator Robert B. Parker. I enjoyed Lullaby, Atkins first foray into the Boston private detective’s universe, and with Wonderland Atkins feels even more at home. The second time around Atkins chooses to give minimal time to the two most complicated relationships in Spenser’s life by not including Hawk at all and having Susan Silverman be out of town for most of the novel. The choice works well, allowing the author to spend more time on our leading man and his relationship with Zebulon Sixkill, a character introduced in Parker’s last Spenser novel.

The adventure begins, as many of these novels often do, with Spenser doing a relatively simple favor for an old friend that soon becomes far more complicated. When Henry Cimoli approaches him about a pair of toughs trying to force Henry and his neighbors out of their condos, Spenser and his new apprentice begin an investigation that will involve gambling, a land grab, an abandoned dog track, billions of dollars, and murder.

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