When Spenser comes to the aid of his long-time love, Susan, in her efforts to help her ex-husband Brad Sterling, he finds himself caught up in a twisted battle against some very bad men, shadowy mob connections, and a woman tormented by her past. 150,000 first printing. Tour. Sudden Mischief , the 25th Spenser novel, finds Robert B. Parker's seemingly ageless sleuth once again engaging Boston's bad guys and sorting out life's moral dilemmas, all (or mostly) in the name of love. When Spenser's girlfriend, psychiatrist Susan Silverman, asks him to investigate charges of sexual harassment leveled against her ex-husband, Brad Sterling, the detective agrees, though the assignment "shows every sign of not working out well." As the sexual harassment allegations melt like April snow, Sterling drops out of sight, a dead body appears in his office, and Spenser discovers a murky slush of clues that suggest Sterling's work as a marketing genius for local charities has been a front for some truly despicable criminal activities. As always, the more-than-slightly-shady Hawk is on hand to help Spenser sort the good from the bad, but Spenser is left to his own devices when it comes to making sense of the emotional havoc the case creates in his relationship with Susan. And what devices they are: emotionally mature and physically dynamic, Spenser once again proves himself as detective, friend, lover, and human being as Sterling's reappearance forces Susan to examine her past and her conscience while searching for her own autonomy. As always, Spenser endures as an intelligent, ethical, and poetic private eye, even if his endless middle age seems a bit supernatural. Parker's nimble, Spartan prose suits a character who carries his years in wisdom rather than body fat. If the heart of any truly great detective series is a truly great detective, Sudden Mischief and the rest of Parker's Spenser novels surely fit the bill. --L.A. Smith This time Spenser is in a real mess: he's agreed to help his girlfriend's ex-husband fight charges of sexual harassment, but when his client disappears, he quickly realizes that a whole lot more is at stake. Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. The relationship between Spenser, Parker's ageless hero, and Susan Silverman, the sleuth's longtime lover, takes center stage in this twenty-fifth installment in the perennially best-selling series. When Susan's ex-husband, Brad, appears after a decades-long absence, nearly broke and the object of a sexual-harassment suit, Spenser reluctantly agrees to help. As he investigates the circumstances surrounding the suit, he discovers that fund-raiser Brad is swimming in very deep water: mobsters, who were using his fund-raising campaigns to launder money, have discovered he was cooking the already cooked books and aren't at all pleased. The deeper Spenser digs, the more bodies he uncovers and the more culpable Brad appears to be. The mystery plot here is nothing special--Spenser and the inimitable Hawk snoop, crack wise, rough up bad guys, and solve the case, just like always--but the parallel plot involving Susan coming to terms with the demons of her childhood and her need to control the dangerous men in her life gives the novel a beyond-genre dimension. Yes, Spenser is a little too sensitive, and Susan is a little too wise, but Parker has always known how to mix fantasy and realism in a way that works as wish fulfillment for reality-bound readers. This is a hard-boiled love story with an irresistible soft spot in its heart: substitute mobsters for communists, and you have The Way We Were with a happy ending. Bill Ott In Spenser's 25th appearance, the peerless Boston shamus is reduced to doing pro bono work on behalf of his lover Susan Silverman's scapegrace of an ex-husband. At least that's how it starts out. Brad Sterling (after sharing his last name with Susan, he anglicized himself out of it) is a promoter who arranges charity fund-raisers, and the fallout from the latest one, a big-tent event called Galapalooza, is a sexual harassment suit against him. Even after Brad crawls to his first ex (there are others) for help, he's too manly to admit to Spenser that he's in a jam--their first scene together is all coy giggles on Brad's part, all slow burn on Spenser's--so there's nothing for Spenser to do but talk to the four well-connected complainants, who all, to a woman, tell him they have nothing to say about the case. The obligatory goons show up to threaten Spenser if he doesn't give up the case, but not only do they fail to muss his hair, they don't keep him from finding out that Galapalooza was a bust for participants besides Brad; it didn't raise money for anybody--except possibly an organization called Civil Streets, whose president, Carla Quagliozzi, is just as silent as the alleged harassees, and just as menacing--via her secret weapon, seamy attorney Richard Gavin--as the goons. Then Brad takes a powder, leaving behind a dead body in his