Family Honor
   Robert B. Parker
  1999 G. P. Putnam's Sons NY USA
   ISBN: 0399145664


Sunny Randall, a Boston PI, former cop, aspiring artist & owner of a miniature bull terrier, is hired by a perfect, wealthy couple to find their teenage daughter. With the help of Sunny's underworld ex-family she tracks down the runaway Millie, becoming the custodian of a terrified girl lost in the adult world of prostitution, politics, murder & corruption.

My beloved passed Family Honor on with exhortations for me to drop everything & dive right in. I'm glad I did. This was a tasty read, like a perfect salad - filled with Parker's renowned delicious dialogue, exciting action & wise insights. Not to forget all the scrumptious food & characters served up in a thoroughly satisfying feast of a story.

Robert Parker's got his groove back! Sunny Randall is arguably his most rewarding heroine, complete with a sagacity borne from keen observation, wry self-awareness, lusty appetites & a calm sense of reality. With an amicable divorce to her credit, a yen for painting, some neat friends & a distinct ear for the absurd, Sunny Randall lopes through Boston's underworld & uppercrusts like a thoroughbred. While on the trail of the missing Millicent, Sunny asks her ex - Richie for help in finding this wayward waif. Richie sets up a meeting with a boss who runs most of Boston's pimps & we get to see the stuff of which Sunny is made.

Eventually the girl is located, rescued from under her pimp's nose & refuses to return to her parents. Sunny wants to know why so she keeps Millie with her in her new home, a loft with all her painting gear set up. Sunny begins to find out why Millie's so scared. Meanwhile, Rosie, the miniature bull terrier, is working her magic on the emotionally shut down youngster.

As Millie melts under the assault of kindness, she tells Sunny that she'd witnessed a conversation about killing between her mother & an unknown man who saw her listening. All she could think of was to run away & get lost in the streets of Boston. Now there are hit men after them & Sunny has to suddenly get deadly serious.

How Sunny, Spike, Brian & Richie, pierce the youngster's armor enough to speak of what had happened at home is fascinating. How Sunny lives her private life while professionally exposing the under currents in Millie's family is lively relationship stuff. How Sunny brings resolution for her young charge & herself makes for one of the best ever Robert B. Parker reads.

Robert B. Parker's body of work is inventive & impressive - having created the inimitable P.I.s Spencer &Jesse Stone: Hush Money; Crimson Joy; Pale Kings and Princes; Taming a Sea-Horse; Ceremony; The Judas Goat; Three Weeks in Spring; The Godwulf Manuscript; Playmates; Double Deuce & much, much more!
(01/09/99)

Rebecca