Perhaps the most problematic aspect of the books was the passage of time: when the series started in the early 1970s, Spenser was about 40 years old. For a while, he aged with the books, and Parker routinely referenced Spenser's military service in Korea, his boxing experiences in the 1960s, and various other cultural notes that dated his hero. By the late 1980s, though, it was hard to maintain the image of Hawk and Spenser as fearsome tough guys: they would be pushing 60, and slowly but surely we saw fewer of those references. Yes, last year saw 71-year-old former Marine Gene Hackman in a fistfight with the driver of another vehicle, and Secondhand Lions featured Robert Duvall as an aging warrior, but by and large readers expectations are that their action heroes aren't too old. Spenser drifted into a somewhat graceful agelessness, where he was forever tough, and those around him were likewise frozen in perfection (most notably Susan Silverman, his love interest and the woman for whom he'd killed countless people in A Catskill Eagle).
Given this semi-displacement from time, however, I think the later books have suffered somewhat, and they've fallen into a sort of comfortable routine. A client will ask Spenser to investigate something, and Spenser will start to do so, only to discover that the client hasn't exactly been forthcoming with him, and then Spenser will proceed despite warnings to "back off." At some point in each book, there will be a conversation about the nature of tough guys and why Spenser and Hawk and their buddies act the way they do. You can almost set your watch by each incident, because they'll be there. But on the flipside, even a comfortably predictable Spenser is still fun.
Take for example the latest foray in the series (number thirty-one, for those counting), Bad Business. The plot is relatively routine: Spenser is hired by Marlene Rowley to find proof that her husband, Trent, is cheating on her. Trent Rowley is the CFO of an energy company called Kinergy, and it doesn't take Spenser long to discover that Kinergy's power players don't believe in the bonds of matrimony, preferring instead the ideal of "courtly love" preached by radio personality Darrin O'Mara. In other words, all the executives at Kinergy seem to enjoy a little spouse-swapping.
Article comments
1 - The Crutnacker
Excellent review, encapsules my thoughts exactly about the Spenser books. They're comfortable, fun reads, but they're all the same these days.