Sixkill: A Spenser Novel (Spenser 40)
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A girl has been found dead, seemingly strangled, in the hotel room of movie star Jumbo Nelson. Jumbo's lawyers want Spenser to find out whether Jumbo did it - not because they care either way, but because the knowledge will help them work out how to block his conviction. Jumbo is a sufficiently repulsive individual that Spenser finds it hard to contain his distaste. And then there is his bodyguard, Zebulon Sixkill, a Cree Indian who squandered his pro-football career thanks to an inability to control his temper, and turned his attentions to alcohol instead. Also involved in Jumbo's case for reasons that remain unclear is a cold-blooded assassin who just might be the most dangerous enemy Spenser has faced yet. But if he can persuade Sixkill to turn his life around, Spenser might just have the ally he needs...
From the Inside Flap
When a young girl is found dead, all fingers point to the movie star and rapacious womanizer Jumbo Nelson. Jumbo's lawyers want Spenser to find out whether Jumbo did it. Never one to turn down a challenge, Spenser starts to investigate. Unfortunately, he can't stand the arrogant Jumbo. And then there's his bodyguard, Zebulon Sixkill, an alcoholic Cree warrior with a bad past and a worse temper. Spenser helps him to turn his life around, and subsequently Sixkill becomes an ally when he needs one most. But the LA mob are involved, and will stop at nothing to protect their 'asset'. Has Spenser finally met his match? This sharp and witty page-turner leads the legendary private eye into a case where his morality is questioned and his life laid on the line.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Before he died in January last year, Parker announced: "I am currently writing a book with the working title Sixkill in which a new character joins Spenser's world." Well, this is the book - published posthumously, it sadly is his very last and final Spenserian adventure: I feel like crying, sort of anyway. I've enjoyed Parker's novels for more than three decades and it's like leaving a very dear friend: his Spenser series, begun with The Godwulf Manuscript in 1973, has brightened my readings with its humour, its great dialogues and clever plots. What crime thrillers am I going to read now, so much rubbish flooding the bookshelves?
This last Spenser is great indeed, and I believe Parker's introduction of a new character (a former football-playing Native American named Zebulon Sixkill, from which the homonymous title) was a novelty he was going to develop further in future episodes. Too bad: we just have to enjoy this one and make the best of it.
Briefly, the story goes that a nasty actor is accused of rape and murder, and Spenser is called in by the Boston PD to investigate the case. Enter the actor's bodyguard Sixkill, and to be sure things get complicated, with dark secrets and strange alliances gradually unravelling. Will our hero overcome all odds to successfully resolve this last assignment?
You bet.
This last Spenser is great indeed, and I believe Parker's introduction of a new character (a former football-playing Native American named Zebulon Sixkill, from which the homonymous title) was a novelty he was going to develop further in future episodes. Too bad: we just have to enjoy this one and make the best of it.
Briefly, the story goes that a nasty actor is accused of rape and murder, and Spenser is called in by the Boston PD to investigate the case. Enter the actor's bodyguard Sixkill, and to be sure things get complicated, with dark secrets and strange alliances gradually unravelling. Will our hero overcome all odds to successfully resolve this last assignment?
You bet.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
"Sixkill" is a final treat for fans of Robert B Parker and of the Spenser series in particular. It is Parker's fourth book to be published posthumously and while his literary estate has reportedly decided to engage other writers to continue the Spenser and Jesse Stone series, this is definitely the last from the master's pen.
When I was a child, my father recounted the same bedtime story to me every night. Despite its predictability, I looked forward to its every word. There was something magically pleasurable and deeply comforting in its familiarity. So too it has become with Parker's books. The plots, the characters and the dialogue are all utterly predictable but yet they are a pleasure to read, comforting too.
"Sixkill" conforms to this pattern. As usual, Spenser gets fired by his intolerable client (in this book, a horribly obese but popular movie star) early in the case but decides to investigate anyway. The case involves the death of a college age girl with a dysfunctional family background. Spenser's probing comes close to exposing the secrets of evil men. They decide to eliminate him. They fail. Many of the usual characters make their bow: Lieutenant Quirk, Rita Fiore, Henry Cimino, Tony Marcus and various hit-men from earlier books. Spenser has the usual self-definitional dialogue with Susan, who, despite her doctorate in psychology from Harvard (how do you know someone went to Harvard? They tell you) pretends not to have figured out the Big Man - but we know by now that this is merely part of their courtship dance. Hawk is not present; he is still off on some hazardous mission in the Former Soviet Union - or East Bumf*** as Quirk prefers to put it.
Spenser is a marvellous creation, a modern knight. This is hardly a coincidence. Early in his career, Parker was a professor of literature specializing in classic detective fiction. As he signals in this book with his references to "Le Morte d'Arthur," he very much sees the Chandlerian detective as the modern equivalent of the mediaeval knight. The Detective is defined by what he does and acts according to a code of chivalry that is his very essence. It is impossible to conceive of him doing anything else or behaving outside the code.
Throughout his work, Parker explores his idea of the Detective by introducing types of Spenser, other warriors who are similarly self defined but who follow a variant of the code. Hawk is an example. In this book we have Z. Sixkill. Z is a failed college football player and - following an encounter with Spenser - a failed bodyguard. As with many of Parker's characters he comes from a minority: he is a Cree Indian. Spenser sees, according to Susan, something of his younger self in the depressed brave and adopts him, teaching him to get fit, to box and to shoot, and to think, to interpret the code and to talk like, well, Spenser. Perhaps had Parker lived he would have created a series for Z.
Spenser's closing line in "Sixkill" is "I got into my car and drove west." Into the sunset. We shall miss him.
When I was a child, my father recounted the same bedtime story to me every night. Despite its predictability, I looked forward to its every word. There was something magically pleasurable and deeply comforting in its familiarity. So too it has become with Parker's books. The plots, the characters and the dialogue are all utterly predictable but yet they are a pleasure to read, comforting too.
"Sixkill" conforms to this pattern. As usual, Spenser gets fired by his intolerable client (in this book, a horribly obese but popular movie star) early in the case but decides to investigate anyway. The case involves the death of a college age girl with a dysfunctional family background. Spenser's probing comes close to exposing the secrets of evil men. They decide to eliminate him. They fail. Many of the usual characters make their bow: Lieutenant Quirk, Rita Fiore, Henry Cimino, Tony Marcus and various hit-men from earlier books. Spenser has the usual self-definitional dialogue with Susan, who, despite her doctorate in psychology from Harvard (how do you know someone went to Harvard? They tell you) pretends not to have figured out the Big Man - but we know by now that this is merely part of their courtship dance. Hawk is not present; he is still off on some hazardous mission in the Former Soviet Union - or East Bumf*** as Quirk prefers to put it.
Spenser is a marvellous creation, a modern knight. This is hardly a coincidence. Early in his career, Parker was a professor of literature specializing in classic detective fiction. As he signals in this book with his references to "Le Morte d'Arthur," he very much sees the Chandlerian detective as the modern equivalent of the mediaeval knight. The Detective is defined by what he does and acts according to a code of chivalry that is his very essence. It is impossible to conceive of him doing anything else or behaving outside the code.
Throughout his work, Parker explores his idea of the Detective by introducing types of Spenser, other warriors who are similarly self defined but who follow a variant of the code. Hawk is an example. In this book we have Z. Sixkill. Z is a failed college football player and - following an encounter with Spenser - a failed bodyguard. As with many of Parker's characters he comes from a minority: he is a Cree Indian. Spenser sees, according to Susan, something of his younger self in the depressed brave and adopts him, teaching him to get fit, to box and to shoot, and to think, to interpret the code and to talk like, well, Spenser. Perhaps had Parker lived he would have created a series for Z.
Spenser's closing line in "Sixkill" is "I got into my car and drove west." Into the sunset. We shall miss him.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
"So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few chosen." -- Matthew 20:16 (NKJV)
Think of all the fictional detectives you've ever read about. How many of them feel like friends you would like to have had? I'm sure most people would take Spenser over Sherlock Holmes and Harry Bosch any day.
The jacket copy says that this is the last Spenser novel completed by Robert B. Parker. Does that mean there are uncompleted ones that might be produced someday? Or perhaps that someone else will be selected to continue the character. The results of such efforts have often been disappointing. Time will tell what's to come next with Spenser.
The good news is that Sixkill is an unusually good Spenser novel, enriched by the addition of a new character, Zebulon Sixkill who is a younger version of Spenser . . . with a different life story. We see Spenser in the role of mentor here, an infrequent . . . but powerful . . . element of the series.
There's sexual ugliness in this story, but it serves to create light rather than darkness by pointing out the importance of doing the right thing . . . even if it means mucking around in a sewer of human depravity.
Thank you, Mr. Parker! You've been very good to us, and we love you.
Think of all the fictional detectives you've ever read about. How many of them feel like friends you would like to have had? I'm sure most people would take Spenser over Sherlock Holmes and Harry Bosch any day.
The jacket copy says that this is the last Spenser novel completed by Robert B. Parker. Does that mean there are uncompleted ones that might be produced someday? Or perhaps that someone else will be selected to continue the character. The results of such efforts have often been disappointing. Time will tell what's to come next with Spenser.
The good news is that Sixkill is an unusually good Spenser novel, enriched by the addition of a new character, Zebulon Sixkill who is a younger version of Spenser . . . with a different life story. We see Spenser in the role of mentor here, an infrequent . . . but powerful . . . element of the series.
There's sexual ugliness in this story, but it serves to create light rather than darkness by pointing out the importance of doing the right thing . . . even if it means mucking around in a sewer of human depravity.
Thank you, Mr. Parker! You've been very good to us, and we love you.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Spenser again
Hawke's absence was missed but the other characters do not fail to provoke a giggle, and Spenser's girlfriend is a little bit less narcissistic (and less annoying) than in other... Read more
Published 7 days ago by Nandita Menon
Kills a Couple of Hours
Robert B Parker was a prolific writer in his time and no more so than with the Spenser series of PI novels. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Sam
Getting tired
This is a long way from one of the better Spenser books. There is a feeling (amazingly for the first time) that Parker is losing interest in his characters. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Mr. J. Hewett
Great
Sixkill is another great Parker book, as usual it is witty, gritty, full of all Parkers usual flair. Read more
Published 7 months ago by joybelle
End of an era
Without giving too much away the last line " I got in my car and drove west" serves as a fitting obituary for Robert B Parker whose death leaves crime fiction much poorer for his... Read more
Published 8 months ago by walrus
RIP RBP
Presumably the last of Mr Parker's Spenser books, and one which sticks to the tried and trusted formula - basically old-fashioned Westerns transplanted to the city, this time once... Read more
Published 12 months ago by John Grimbaldeston
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