Double Play

Robert B. Parker fans have been quick to embrace each addition to his remarkable canon, from the legendary Spenser series to the novels featuring Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall. And his occasional forays into the past -- Gunman's Rhapsody, a fresh take on Wyatt Earp, and Poodle Springs, based on a Raymond Chandler story -- have dazzled critics and confirmed his place among the greatest writers of this century. Burke, a veteran of World War II and a survivor of Guadalcanal, is hired by Brooklyn Dodgers manager Branch Rickey to guard Robinson. While Burke shadows Robinson, a man of tremendous strength and character suddenly thrust into the media spotlight, the bodyguard must also face some hard truths of his own, in a world where the wrong associations can prove fatal.A brilliant novel about a very real man, Double Play is a triumph: ingeniously crafted, rich with period detail, and resounding with the themes familiar to Parker'

My how things have changed. This is a novel of nostalgia and nausea. Nostalgia for the days of The Dodgers and the Giants and the Yankees, all in New York City, all the best teams in baseball. Italicized interludes describe a boy growing up in Boston as a Dodger fan.Other reviewers have said this part is autobiographical.The plot is Jacky Robinson's first year at the Dodgers and he needs a body guard. This body guard some critics have called just a card-board import from Parker's Spencer series. I think he is much more.This is fictional part is the source of my nausea. I am a old white male . At the top of his form Richard B. Schwartz This is Parker on the stretch, away from his favorite characters, away from his Boston setting, plunged into the past. When he's stretched he's at the top of his form and demonstrates his moves on every page.Most of all, the Jackie Robinson story is a story about a time and the first third of the book is background. Parker does the postwar period masterfully and the interspersed personal chapters are a nice, innovative touch. They've drawn some criticism, unwarranted in my opinion.The characters are fresh, the plotting and dialogue as economical as the best Parker. More like Virgil Cole than Spenser No fun or humor to this damaged man. Burke is what we can imagine Virgil Cole was like before he met Hitch. Told in the third person (unlike most Parker stories) we're kept at arm's length from Burke. The segues back to Parker's Dodger memories however brings us back into the familiar Parker first person. My father was Brooklyn born and a big Dodgers fan. Having lost him recently, and he being of the same era as Parker, it was nice to hear my father's voice in those same memories.

In an unusual gambit, however, this time he mixes his storytelling with his firsthand reminiscences (in chapters titled "Bobby") of growing up as a devoted Dodgers fan, a move that adds resonance and a sense of wonder to the taut narrative. Parker fans will recognize with joy many of the author's lifelong themes (primarily, honor and the redemptive power of love), and in the Burke/Robinson dynamic, echoes of Spenser/Hawk (the PI's black colleague). Parker, always a clean writer, has never written so spare and tight a book; this should be required reading for all aspiring storytellers. This isn't Parker's firs