Boston private detective Spenser journeys to Georgia to protect a young horse after he is hired by Walter Clive, the president of Three Fillies Stables, to uncover the creep who is threatening his prize horse, Hugger Mugger. 175,000 first printing. Why is somebody shooting Walter Clive's horses at Three Fillies Stables in Lamarr, Georgia? That's what toothy, patrician Walter wants the droll, hulking Boston detective Spenser to find out. Walter worries that his racetrack phenomenon Hugger Mugger, worth millions, is next. So Spenser goes south to a place where "the heat felt like it could be cut into squares and used to build a wall," as he puts it in the crisp Chandleresque lingo that made him famous in dozens of novels. The Clive clan is one weird bunch. Take Walter's daughters, his three "fillies." Penny is like her dad, all impeccable looks and icy efficiency. Stonie and SueSue take after their sinister mom, who left the family to live with a guitarist in San Francisco and changed her name to Sherry Lark. Penny helps Dad run the business, while her soused sisters cheat on their pathetic husbands, Cord and Pud. (Pud's short for Puddle; his dad was named Poole.) As unsightly family secrets spill, Spenser feels like he's in a Tennessee Williams play. Then someone on two legs takes a bullet, and the mystery gets tense. Spenser gets plenty of sarcastic mileage out of upper-class horse-country twits, crooked security guards, dumb jocks gone to seed, and wily Southern lawyers, and the story saunters well. What's best are the endless wisecracks, the unflattering thumbnail character sketches, and sharp sentences like this one: "Like all jockeys, he was about the size of a ham sandwich, except for his hands, which appeared to be those of a stonemason." --Tim Appelo This time, Spenser heads South to thwart the killing of race horses. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. The good news about the latest Spenser novel is that Parker takes his long-running series on the road, sending his hero to Georgia horse country, where the thoroughbred gentry offers a fine target for the wisecracking sleuth's finely honed sarcasm. The bad news is that Hawk, Spenser's erstwhile sidekick, is out of the picture this time. Spenser without Hawk is a necessarily diminished thing--the relationship between the white sleuth and his black best friend forms the very heart of the series, and Hawk himself remains one of the most enduring characters in mystery fiction--but there is enough going on here to keep most longtime fans from worrying about what they're missing. Spenser's assignment is to find whoever is killing racehorses at Three Fillies Stables and make sure the next victim isn't Hugger Mugger, the stable's prize nag. Walter Clive, owner of the stable, and his dysfunctional brood of boozy daughters and do-nothing sons-in-law--the stuff of 1950s melodrama--afford Spenser plenty of suspects and lots of opportunities to display his rapier wit. Late-night phone calls home to Boston give Susan Silverman, Spenser's lady love, a chance to swap one-liners with her fella, and the Hawk role is admirably played by a gay ex-cop who helps round up the bad guys. Don't expect this one to rank in your top 10 Spenser novels, but it's worth a couple hours of light entertainment. Still, it's time for Hawk to hurry home. Bill Ott Robert B. Parker was the author of more than fifty books. He died in January 2010. Hard Cover Book