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Narrated by:
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Joe Mantegna
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By:
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Robert B. Parker
About this listen
In 1974, a revolutionary group calling itself the Dread Scott Brigade held up the old Shawmut Bank in Boston's Audubon Circle. Money was stolen. And a woman named Emily Gordon, a visitor in town cashing traveler's checks, was shot and killed. No one saw who shot her. Despite security camera photos and a letter from the group claiming responsibility, the perpetrators have remained at large for nearly three decades.
Enter Paul Giacomin, the closest thing to a son Spenser has. Twice before, Spenser has come to the young man's assistance, and now that Paul is in his 30s, his troubled past is behind him. When Paul's friend Daryl Gordon -daughter of the long-gone Emily - decides she needs closure about the matter of her mother's death, it's Spenser she turns to. The lack of clues and the fact that an FBI intelligence report is missing force Spenser to reach out in every direction - to Daryl's estranged hippie father; to Vinnie Morris and the mob; to the mysterious Ives - and test his resourcefulness and courage.
©2003 Robert B. Parker (P)2003 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Spenser earned his degree in the school of hard knocks, so he is ready when a Boston university hires him to recover a rare, stolen manuscript. He is hardly surprised that his only clue is a radical student with four bullets in his chest. The cops are ready to throw the book at the pretty blond coed whose prints are all over the murder weapon but Spenser knows there are no easy answers. He tackles some very heavy homework and knows that if he doesn't finish his assignment soon, he could end up dead.
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Good start to a great series!
- By William on 03-31-10
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After a busted marriage kicks his drinking problem into overdrive and the LAPD unceremoniously dumps him, 35-year-old Jesse Stone's future looks bleak. So he's shocked when a small Massachusetts town called Paradise recruits him as police chief. He can't help wondering if this job is a genuine chance to start over, the kind of offer he can't refuse. Once on board, Jesse doesn't have to look for trouble in Paradise: It comes to him. For what is on the surface a quiet New England community quickly proves to be a crucible of political and moral corruption.
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Good book, bad narration
- By Phred on 07-09-12
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Family Honor
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Hired by a wealthy family to locate their teenage daughter, Sunny Randall, a former cop turned Boston P.I., soon finds herself the bodyguard for a difficult teenager who refuses to return to her family. But before long, Sunny is facing greater problems than she ever imagined including a criminal conspiracy that reaches to the top of the state government.
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Good detective yarn
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I am over 60 but ...
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The Narrator Makes the Difference
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Amazing writer
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
Spenser earned his degree in the school of hard knocks, so he is ready when a Boston university hires him to recover a rare, stolen manuscript. He is hardly surprised that his only clue is a radical student with four bullets in his chest. The cops are ready to throw the book at the pretty blond coed whose prints are all over the murder weapon but Spenser knows there are no easy answers. He tackles some very heavy homework and knows that if he doesn't finish his assignment soon, he could end up dead.
-
-
Good start to a great series!
- By William on 03-31-10
By: Robert B. Parker
-
Night Passage
- By: Robert B. Parker
- Narrated by: Richard Masur
- Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After a busted marriage kicks his drinking problem into overdrive and the LAPD unceremoniously dumps him, 35-year-old Jesse Stone's future looks bleak. So he's shocked when a small Massachusetts town called Paradise recruits him as police chief. He can't help wondering if this job is a genuine chance to start over, the kind of offer he can't refuse. Once on board, Jesse doesn't have to look for trouble in Paradise: It comes to him. For what is on the surface a quiet New England community quickly proves to be a crucible of political and moral corruption.
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Good book, bad narration
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Family Honor
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Good detective yarn
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By: Robert B. Parker
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Appaloosa
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- Length: 4 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When it comes to writing, Robert B. Parker knows no boundaries. From the iconic Spenser detective series and the novels featuring Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone, to the groundbreaking historical novel Double Play, Parker's imagination has taken readers from Boston to Brooklyn and back again. In Appaloosa, fans are taken on another trip, to the untamed territories of the West during the 1800s.
-
-
I am over 60 but ...
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By: Robert B. Parker
-
Double Play
- A Novel
- By: Robert B. Parker
- Narrated by: Robert Forster
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1947 when Joseph Burke, ex-Marine, ex-husband, ex-somebody–is hired as a bodyguard to protect Lauren Roach, 25 and spoiled rotten. The unlikely duo becomes entangled with Burke’s boyhood hero, color-barrier breaking baseball player Jackie Robinson, in a story that is both thrilling and engaging. It is in the historical character Jackie Robinson that Mr. Parker finds inspiration and Joseph Burke may find his redemption. This is a work of fiction about a real man. Most of what I’ve written I’ve made up. I have, however, attempted to render Jackie Robinson accurately. As he was, or as I imagined him to be, in 1947, when I was turning 15, and he was changing the world. The rest is altogether fiction. It may be more Burke’s story then Jackie’s story. But, without Jackie, Burke would have had no story. And neither would I. Robert B Parker.
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The Narrator Makes the Difference
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-
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-
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Overall
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Performance
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Critic reviews
"The character sketches are Ginsu sharp." (Entertainment Weekly)
"Spenser's back, just the way we like him." (New York Daily News)
excellent Spencer story and production
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Joe Mantegna is Spencer
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another winner for Robert Parker
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Delightful
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He gets at meaningful interactions between characters without wasting words. The reader gets the picture without the author's having to waste words and time with a lot of description and dialogue. I suspect this kind of writing is tough to accomplish, and it's good to read.
So it's 4 stars: good story, concise writing, interesting and tightly drawn characters, and that interesting dialogue: lots of tough guy lingo, and you can see the various characters sizing each other up and staring each other down. And shooting each other.
Mantegna is a good listen, too.
Bob
Review of Back Story
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Parker's Spenser is the best
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Joe Mantegna continues his entertaining portrayal as Spenser... one that he's also become known for in made-for-TV movies. As a side-note, the voices that he gives his female characters in his readings never fail to amuse me. I particularly enjoy when he attempts to pull off a rendition of a woman trying to seduce Spenser. Those laughs alone make the commute fly by quickly.
you know what you're gonna get
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Any additional comments?
Classic Parker. Spencer does it again. Mantegna hits the nail on the head.Superman, Batman, Spencer
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The one thing I deliberately have not done is to read the book in which Susan dies. Clearly it is time for me to do this now. I hope that this kind of real-world development (although just a tiny bit extreme and melodramatic for my tastes) may give us another chance to see Spenser as a flesh-and-blood fictional character (huh?). Up to now his suit of armor hasn't been pierced in any significant way. Maybe in that case it will be. For now, the mix-and-match lost kids-disturbed families-helpful/semi-helpful cops above whom Spenser and Hawk rise to the rescue: I've just about had it. For an author who has found a way to mint money by reeling off one after another just-slightly modified book, it must have taken a whole lot of guts for Mr. Parker to walk across to the other side of the desk and see his guy from a whole 'nother point of view. This is an accomplishment that, I dare say, Lee Child will never ever even approach. My hat is truly off to Mr. Parker.
Maybe (gulp) I've read too much Robert B. Parker.
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...he's Baa-a-ack!
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