Book Review

By Derryll White

Lupica, Mike (2023).  Robert B. Parker’s Broken Trust.

Anyone who has read these reviews for a while will know that the author has a problem with family trusts that farm out the names of well-established authors who have passed away.  It keeps the profits flowing into the family and males it easier on the publishers to continue with a known author’s name.  For the most part these efforts result in the degradation of the literary legacy

Robert B. Parker was a legendary figure. He died in 2010 having written 40 novels featuring the detective Spenser, a character that influenced many writers who followed such as Robert Crais.  Parker’s readers have always been loyal, following him from book to book and into new series as they developed.  But Spenser has always been the anchor.

Spenser knew Boston, always had a humorous bit of dialogue in any situation, and had the most understanding and smart partner in Dr. Susan Silverman. Female readers have been known to say that no man should know as much about women as Robert B. Parker reveals through Dr. Silverman.

This is Mike Lupica’s first novel extending the Spenserian empire. He gets it right. Other writers such as Ace Atkins have tried and failed, miserably some would say. This is not the case with Mike Lupica.

He takes Spenser on an exploration into wealth and power, but does not lose that smooth edge that Robert B. Parker developed around the Spenser persona. Spenser’s partner, Hawk, comes more to the fore as well. Hawk vies with Robert Crais’ Joe Pike as the greatest wing man in detective fiction history.

Lupica said in an interview that he has had Parker’s voice inside his head since he was a kid.  Anyone who reads knows that voice is everything, and the author has it in ‘Broken Trust’.  This really is spending time with old friends.

– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them.  When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.

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