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    God Save the Child: Spenser, Book 2
    Unavailable
    God Save the Child: Spenser, Book 2
    Unavailable
    God Save the Child: Spenser, Book 2
    Audiobook5 hours

    God Save the Child: Spenser, Book 2

    Written by Robert B. Parker

    Narrated by Michael Prichard

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Appie Knoll is the kind of suburb where kids grow up right. But something is wrong. Fourteen-year-old Kevin Bartlett disappears. Everyone thinks he's run away -- until the comic strip ransom note arrives.

    It doesn't take Spenser long to get the picture -- an affluent family seething with rage, a desperate boy making strange friends...friends like Vic Harroway, body builder. Mr. Muscle is Spenser's only lead and he isn't talking...except with his fists. But when push comes to shove, when a boy's life is on the line, Spenser can speak that language too.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJul 14, 2009
    ISBN9780307705112
    Unavailable
    God Save the Child: Spenser, Book 2
    Author

    Robert B. Parker

    Robert B Parker was the best-selling author of over 60 books, including Small Vices, Sudden Mischief, Hush Money, Hugger Mugger, Potshot, Widows Walk, Night Passage, Trouble in Paradise, Death in Paradise, Family Honor, Perish Twice, Shrink Rap, Stone Cold, Melancholy Baby, Back Story, Double Play, Bad Business, Cold Service, Sea Change, School Days and Blue Screen. He died in 2010 at the age of 77.

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    Reviews for God Save the Child

    3.5/5

    272 ratings13 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I will miss Robert Parker. His characters of Spenser, Hawk and Susan Silverman live on the way Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Watson do. So it is great to reread the Spenser novels that Phil Holme's recommended to meback in the 1980s.

      This one stands the test of time, even if the clothing styles and polityics are dated.
    • 4/5
      Re-read of an early Spencer novel from the '70's. This was still enjoyable but I had forgotten that Spencer was not quite as much of a stand up guy as he was written in later novels. The wise cracks were still there but some of the attitudes were less than stellar.

      3.5 Stars for a long time favorite but not as good as I remembered.
    • 2/5
      This novel irritated me to no end. Parker apes Chandler, and I suppose there is something to be said for his attempt to convey a sense of time and place in 1970s Boston suburbia. But Parker does not really have anything to say; the mystery is underwhelming and Parker has a weird fixation with dads not being there for their sons or something.
    • 3/5
      Some of the early Spenser novels are such realistic representations of the time in which they are set that it is difficult to accept the story. In this one, Spenser is hired to find a missing boy. He soons discovers that the family is such a mess that any intelligent individual would run away. This book does have the trademark Spenser snarkiness which I love, but the story wasn't my face.
    • 3/5
      It was okay.

      I like the character of Spenser and I like the writing style. I just wish it wasn't quite so... inevitable. Nothing much happens, and what does happen is marred by the fact that we already know who has the boy and whether or not he's in any danger.

      So it's all about Spenser, instead. As I say, I like the character, but I'd rather see him in adversity, than just doing the daily routine. Ho-hum, another day, another nothing-much-happening.

      I'm sure I'll eventually get around to the next in the series. I expect it to get much better, because of reputation, alone. But I'm not feverish about it.
    • 3/5
      While the mystery is not my everything, Spenser has turned out to be. He is such a smart a**! I find myself giggling constantly. I absolutely love the "Spenserisms" and have taken to copying and saving them. They may not make sense to anyone else, but they make me fall out of my chair laughing. If that is the most a book can give you well I say it is a lot. I loved the introduction of Susan. She has Spenser's number down. I'll be reading this series regularly. I am enjoying the flashbacks to another era and these make perfect in betweener books.
    • 4/5
      In the second book of the series, Spenser, our likable, romantic, tough-guy detective, hunts for a missing child. The parents are a mess. A ransom note follows, as well as murder and extortion, not to mention, Susan, a new, classy dame in Spenser's life. Set in Boston in the late 1970's with all sorts of bell bottom pants and lots of tacky white clothing (who wears a white raincoat...and is a guy?). The book is great fun.
    • 4/5
      Parker has a few books with unhappy, neglected teens; this is one of them. It's also the first Susan Silverman book in the series; she's changed a lot since, most particularly her job description. This is how she is introduced: "Susan Silverman wasn't beautiful, but there was a tangibility about her, a physical reality, that made the secretary with the lime-green bosom seem insubstantial. She had shoulder-length black hair and a thin dark Jewish face with prominent cheekbones. Tall, maybe five seven, with black eyes. It was hard to tell her age, but there was a sense about her of intelligent maturity which put her on my side of thirty." [p. 35] Spenser says he is 37. A problem with a long series is keeping the back story straight; here, Spenser remembers his mother's cooking, but, later in the series, he explains how that wasn't possible.Spenser also brings up a point of grammar that I never thought about; I would have thanked him, rather than become indignant: Moriarty said[,] "And I question whether or not I'm authorized to discuss these matters with you." "Just 'whether,' " I said. "I beg your pardon?" he said. " 'Whether' implies 'or not,' " I said.
    • 4/5
      I believe this to be the second in the Spenser series. Audible has released many of the early titles read by a favorite narrator, Michael Pritchard. We meet Susan Silverman and Healy (both of whom have cameo roles in the Stone series) for the first time as Spenser is hired to find a boy who has disappeared who has ostensibly been kidnapped (with his guinea pig.) We also learn Spenser’s first name (I’m not telling.) And his age. Heh heh. Solid mystery layered with Spenser’s familiar wise-cracks. The characters are mostly disreputable and dysfunctional; one wonders what Parker thought of his neighbors.
    • 4/5
      The second installment in Parker’s Spenser series, takes place in the 70s. Dated in some ways, intriguing in others. A bit sexist but comparatively speaking, for the time, not too bad really. More dated is the morality of the time, but true, I think, as I remember the days.Spenser is hired to find a missing 15 year old boy. At first it seems like he’s run off, but a few days later, a ransom note arrives. And then things get more bizarre from there.Interesting twists and turns, and Spenser’s smart arse commentary and retorts amuse.And the clothes are a hoot. I remember them well.
    • 4/5
      A typical Spenser outing, most fun for its characterization and wit. This is where we meet Susan Silverman for the first time, and it sure is easy to see why Spenser digs her. Their scenes together just sing.
    • 4/5
      Fourteen-yr old Kevin Bartlett is missing. The affluent bored suburbanite parents hire Spenser to help the state and local police find him. A ransom note appears, the ransom is paid and instead of getting the boy back the parents get a cruel prank and their lawyer is found dead in their livingroom. I thought the plot was clever – it fooled me. We were left wondering how Spenser would reconnect in later books with (Smithfield?) Sheriff Trask. The big bonus in this book is that Spenser met Susan Silverberg – she’s Kevin’s high school guidance counselor. Susan is an attractive, mature, independent, smart woman – a great match for Spenser – partner, not subordinate. All of the dialogue is good but particularly between Spenser and Susan. I paraphrase a snappy passage:Were you looking down my receptionist’s blouse?Clues, clues. I am an investigator. I was looking for clues.The ending was a little corny. Some pretty cold, shallow players suddenly display some character but what’re ya gonna do? It’s the 70s.
    • 3/5
      The plot was quite predictable, the smartassness of Spenser is still funny, but I absolutely hated the ending. It was so abrupt and I was more than a bit miffed about it. After these first two books I now know to not read them on an empty stomach--all his cooking/eating makes my mouth water, even if it is unbelivable that such menus are planned and consumed :)