The Godwulf Manuscript by Robert B. Parker

I read this for the monthly book-reading game at the KindleBoards.com forum. By design, it is in a genre outside of my comfort zone. In spite of that, I still enjoyed it, though a few of its quirks kept me from totally getting into it. The protagonist’s penchant for irritating everyone became irritating to me: why did all these people hire him in spite of the fact that he rubbed them all the wrong way? Also, his tendency to describe all sorts of details (clothes, furniture, street scenes, etc.) got annoying. The vast majority had no bearing on the story, other than apparently to prove to us how well this detective noticed all the details.

But, the story-telling was brisk, the plot interesting, and the characters generally believable and not entirely stereotyped. As the book was published way back when I graduated from high school, it was kind of fun to see references to a lot of things peculiar to that time, form the clothes to the cigarettes — and no concern about promiscuity and AIDS/HIV.

Overall, if I were into the mystery/detective genre, I’d probably want to check out some of the later books to see how they evolved, as I liked much of the writing. But as it’s really not my thing, I suspect it is unlikely I’ll read more of them. But, if you are into the genre and have not yet read any of the Spenser books, you should definitely check it out.