Spenser #04 - Promised Land

The fourth Spenser novel, Promised Land, was a real turning point in the series. The book, authored by Robert B. Parker, was published in 1976 by Houghton Mifflin in hardcover and in 1978 as a paperback by Dell. The novel won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1977, one of two that Parker would earn over his career (the other being a Grand Master in 2002). However, despite those lofty achievements, the book is probably best remembered as “the one where Hawk appears”. Or, maybe, the one where Susan tells Spenser, “I love you”. 

The book begins with Spenser relocating his private-eye office from a disreputable part of Boston to a more renowned section of the city. Susan is there helping him spruce up the place when a potential client walks in, a real estate developer from Cape Cod named Harvey. He wants to hire Spenser ($100 a day plus expenses) to track down his wife, a woman named Pamela, that has skipped out on him and their kids. Spenser needs a new client and takes the case. But it won't be an easy one.

When Spenser arrives at Harvey's home he is surprised to find an old acquaintance there named Hawk. Spenser explains that he and Hawk both spent time in the boxing circuit. While they aren't friends, they have known of each other for decades. Spenser also knows Hawk works as a lethal enforcer and that he could be working for a local loan shark named King Powers. When Spenser presses Harvey on clues to where his wife might be, he also indulges in a few questions about Harvey's relationship with Hawk. Spenser feels that Harvey is in deep debt with Powers, and Hawk was at the family home roughing him up to get the repayment. That's part of the core mystery of Promised Land and it also ties into the book's fitting title. 

Parker is such a fluid and descriptive writer. I could read about what Spenser is eating, driving, reading, and cooking, and it doesn't even have to involve a mystery. That is how great Parker's style is: his breezy ability to just write life's circumstances and somehow magically make it interesting. His prose is conversational and allows readers to live within the detective's mind – often solving the crime or simply planning the next meal. Regardless, it is compelling enough to keep flipping the pages, a craft lost on so many authors that are jagged and meddlesome with their wordcraft.

Spenser's case involves gun running, nefarious women, mean men, and other underbelly criminal enterprises that keep Promised Land on the right path as a glorious crime-fiction novel. However, Parker has a lot to say about marriage in the book. That's the central concept, the one that underlines every character and situation. Harvey and Pamela's marriage is in a state of crisis, but there's also a delicious awakening of Susan that drives home her ability to love Spenser – the dangerous hero with a gun. Parker's commentary on enduring love, budding romance, and the life cycle of raising a home and a family. It's a surprising and unexpected thing to find in a crime-fiction novel – the art of love, the ability to grow and sustain in a relationship, and the inevitable burnout when finance and stress scar marriage.

Promised Land is really something special. Pick up a copy HERE.