Bobby Underwood's Reviews > Looking For Rachel Wallace

Though one of the early Spensers, there are elements here which make this one rank surprisingly low within the Spenser canon. First, we have too much Susan Silverman. While she isn’t plopping down in the bathroom sink, so that she can be close to a mirror while putting on her makeup, as in Hugger Mugger, a little of her still goes a looong way for this reader. Also, there is no Hawk, as even towards the end, Spenser wants to do this one on his own. As yet there is no Vinnie, my favorite of the Parker posse.

The real problem with this one, however, is the thoroughly dislikable Rachel Wallace. She is a caustically angry and hostile gay feminist whose few valid points are muted by her own chip-on-the-shoulder hatred towards men, and anything related to them. As Spenser explains to her when her publisher hires him to protect her — because of threats about a book she is releasing — her being lesbian isn’t a problem for him, but her being angry and impossible to work for, and get along with, might become an issue. And it does, because even back when Parker wrote this, the "victim" culture so prevalent today had begun to surface.

While the dialog and story are average to above average for the series, and there are some nice moments, having such an unlikable client wears on the reader more than it does the very Boston-liberal/libertarian Spenser. Frankly, when Rachel Wallace fires Spenser, the reader wants to breathe a sigh of relief that she won’t be in the story any longer. Her absence, however, drives the second half of the book, because unlike the reader, Spenser feels obligated to go find her.

Spenser’s sense of guilt seems a literary contrivance on this occasion. It simply gave Spenser a reason to go looking for her — and therefore give us a resolution — something the reader did not always get in later Spenser entries. The good part is that because she’s been kidnapped, Rachel Wallace and her palpable anger isn’t in the second half of the story until Spenser finds her. The bad part is that her presence is always abrasive and in some way unpleasant for both the reader, and Spenser.

The psychobabble and gobbledygook at the end of the book is just eye-rollingly inane. Other than learning that Parker must have been on a Syrian bread kick around this time — Spenser must eat it at least three times in the book — there was nothing new when I went back to read this again after many years. It's rare for one of the earlier Spenser novels to rank as low as a small handful toward the end of this great series do, but this one unfortunately does. I have friends who like this one more than I do, but it wasn’t my favorite when I first read it many years ago, and having read so many great ones in the series since then, it really pales in comparison now.