Family Honor (Sunny Randall)
by Robert B. Parker
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Book Summary Information
Author: Robert B. ParkerEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-11-01
ISBN: 0425177068
Number of pages: 338
Publisher: Berkley
Book Reviews of Family Honor (Sunny Randall)
Book Review: "You Wouldn't Understand," she said - Rachel Wallace. This novel is Spenser's Reply.
Summary: 5 Stars
FAMILY HONOR lived up to its title as the pilot for this delightful series which felt at first like Spenser was toning himself into a female roar heard round the literary arena, while extending his slant on gangster Vs cop family backgrounds (in which neither is all bad or all good) in this Juliet and Romeo romance.
I hadn't thought I'd be able to get into a female private eye series by Parker, especially after having become addicted to his 34 Spenser novels. But FAMILY HONOR was a perfect appetizer with appealing percolation. I don't doubt that Parker can carry both his new series (see my review of NIGHT PASSAGE, Jesse Stone # 1).
It didn't take more than a few chapters for Sunny to split off from the long-wrought, well-writ Spenser mystique and into her own, as a full character... maybe with Spenser speaking into her ear as an angel from an alternate reality, for a while. I enjoyed the slips connecting to Spenser, i.e., how Sunny might deal with a particular hairy situation if she were a 200 pound, male boxer. In humorous yet realistic contrast to Spenser and Hawk types, Parker dramatized what a small female can do to compensate for not being a testy, taut, towering gorilla-with-gonads, in a plot which will had me smiling. I'm excited about this series; I enjoyed the upbeat feeling of this first offering in it. I relished hearing Randall use Spenser's trademark words in dialogue, like "some more" and "eek."
Reading the first few chapters of FAMILY HONOR I kept seeing Spenser in high heels, noting how uncomfortable they were, and wondering where/how to effectively house a big enough gun on a 115 lb, 5'4" body... as he seemed to be having great fun adapting to this recent female incarnation, shaking out the form and personality. Of course, that image alone got me grinning. By the time the intense ending called up, I was liking Sunny Randall every bit as much as Kinsey Millhone (Sue Grafton's P. I.).
For this unique pilot, Parker designed a stylish, italicized prologue in third person observation of Sunny and Rosie, accomplishing an artistic, literary feel, giving a light-touch, sensitive contrast to chapter one opening into a first person narrative style with Sunny telling her own story in the classic private eye genre mode.
The included cultural icons of cooking, dress, habits, and thinking were precisely on target with the copyright date of 1999, when the Great Chefs TV episodes were running hot and heavy, with their long-handled saute pans being shook (contents were no longer stirred on TV) above gas-lit burners on commercial grade stoves, featuring Spike, Sunny's gay, tough-guy chef friend.
The plot here gave hints of EARLY AUTUMN (# 7 Spenser) and CEREMONY (# 9 Spenser) as Sunny took in a young teen, Millicent Patton, runaway, hooking daughter of her clients. Enlightening entertainment was easily obtained through Sunny's ways of dealing with and drawing out this young human lost in the sump and shrug of a lack of love.
A few quirky questions came to mind as I began reading this novel:
What might Rachel Wallace (# 6 SPENSER, Looking for Rachel Wallace) say about Spenser's (Parker's) ability to understand being female, if she were to read FAMILY HONOR. And what would she think about macho if she had read all 34 Spenser novels. Can novels help us understand that which we would have to stretch outside our bodies and into another form to get? I'd say they can, especially if penned by Parker.
Rachel Wallace may have to give the gauntlet on this one. Spenser understands.
Yet... can testosterone ever fully comprehend powerlessness...
Maybe any person who has ever been depressed, grieved loss of a loved one, or desperately wanted something he couldn't have, for whatever reason, has the capacity to comprehend the initial feeling of hopelessness which sometimes comes at those times of leached strength and slow coming answers. We each have a spirit, though, which seems to believe that morning comes daily. Parker has made a good case that sunny weather can dog the footsteps of storms.
Linda Shelnutt
Summary of Family Honor (Sunny Randall)
The author of the bestselling Spenser novels introduces a heroine unlike any other-private eye Sunny Randall. She's street-smart, sexy, and suddenly thrown into a Boston mob war where high-stakes politics and low-down killers conspire to make Sunny's first case her last."Robert B. Parker has another winner...Sunny can hold her own with Spenser."-Boston Globe "Sharp and funny." -Washington Post
"Sleek and seductive...one of the best."-Publishers Weekly
Let's get this settled right away: Sunny Randall is nothing like Spenser. True, she's a private eye in Boston with good connections to the cops, and she also knows a lot of bad guys. And yes, she happens to have a trusty sidekick named Spike, and a close friend who could easily be related to Susan Silverman, (Spenser's long-term companion). Oh, did I mention the cute dog? Aside from that, though, there's absolutely no similarity between this new series from Robert B. Parker and his long-running Spenser books. Just because the case Sunny is working on--finding a missing 15-year-old girl who has run away from her very rich parents--sounds similar to the Spenser favorite Thin Air doesn't mean Parker is repeating himself here. Think of it as more like a homage, the kind of thing the author took on when he agreed to finish Raymond Chandler's Poodle Springs. Only in this case it's a homage to himself--but what the hell.
Written specifically with Parker's good friend actress Helen Hunt in mind, Family Honor is all in good fun. At one point, a no-nonsense nun looks down at Sunny's bull terrier, who is lying on her back begging for a tummy rub. "What's wrong with this dog?" Sister said. "It is a dog, isn't it?"
Parker is so good that with one hand tied behind his back he can create characters that are more memorable than most writers can even when pounding away with both fists. In just a few short pages, he tells us all about Sunny's career as a painter--and about the complicated relationship between her cool policeman father and her irritating pseudo-feminist mother. Parker even makes a direct dig at Spenser (who, before turning to private investigating, had a short and fairly unsuccessful career in the boxing world). When the runaway girl questions Sunny's ability to protect her from dangerous criminals--"you're a girl like me, for crissake, what are you going to do?"--Sunny replies, "It would be nice if I weighed two hundred pounds and used to be a boxer. But I'm not, so we find other ways." Exactly. --Dick Adler
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