Ceremony (Spenser)

by Robert B. Parker

Book Overview

Boston private eye Spenser's search for a missing high-school girl takes him to Boston's Combat Zone, to high-class, specialty brothels, and back to the straight world whose righteous facade overlap... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0440109930
• Release Date: August 1992
• Publisher: Dell
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.7" x 0.6" x 4.2"

Customer Reviews

Robert B Parker

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Ceremonious

I'll be honest, I'd have to look up the word ceremonious to be truly certain of its meaning, but that's not terribly important here. In short, it's a great book! I saw the TV movie first which made me want to read the book. It may have been the first Spenser movie I saw, although I used to watch the series when I was a kid. Guess that dates me a bit. I am a big fan of the Spenser series, and this is one of my favorite Spenser books along with Early Autumn. I've read eleven, so I'm sure there are more favorites to come. I think I am so crazy about this one because the outcome is so unusual. Unexpected. Maybe I'm biased...Robert B. Parker is my favorite author, but he is for a reason, and that reason is Spenser, Hawk, and Susan (among others). They are good characters. They make for good books. This is one of many, but it is one I highly recommend.

Now this is more like it!

I recently finished Spenser's latest, WIDOW'S WALK, and really didn't like it one bit. Thank goodness for CEREMONY, which reminded me of everything I love about the series. The story was complex and meaningful -- student April Kyle has a terrible homelife and turns to hooking. What is worse, what's more damaging to her still evolving psyche? Susan is serious and struggling with real issues. Hawk is a loyal, supportive presence. No extraneous subplots, no strained wise cracking. Just good storytelling. Highly recommended.

A moral dilemma for Spenser

There is no murder in this entry in the long running Spenser series. The missing person is found before the book is half over. What gives the book it's central focus is Spenser's moral problem-what do you do with a teenage hooker who doesn't want to leave her current 'job'? He passes up the chance to bust a big-time pimp preferring to concentrate on a prostitution ring with its roots in the Boston school system. He rescues the girl from a kinky brothel where insubordinate hookers are sent as punishment only to have her break away and rejoin the the man who recruited her. Along with Hawk, Spenser engages in one of the most astounding fistfights of his career at the headquarters of the ring and manages to rescue the girl again. At the end, Spenser and Susan are forced to face the problem of what to do with the girl. Their options shake Susan to her core and make for an interesting argument on what is good for the girl vs what is legal. This stands head and shoulders above the usual Spenser parade of wisecracks. Along with "Mortal Stakes", this is one of Parker's best.

Spenser tries to save April Kyle because Susan asks him

Spenser's significant other, Susan Silverman, finally takes center stage in "Ceremony." April Kyle, one of the kids at the school where Susan is a guidance counselor, has dropped out of school and become a prostitute. When Spenser meets April's parents it becomes immediately clear why this kid left home and why being a [prostitute] would look good. After meeting them Spenser wants nothing to do with this family, but Susan insists telling him: "For me. A favor. For me." Our hero sighs, tells the mother he will take the case for a dollar and threatens to hurt the father if he does not button up. Susan's involvement does not end at this point in the case and while Hawk is again a strong supporting presence, the key aspect of this novel is Spenser dealing not only with the case but also with how Susan handles how he deals with the case. Their discussions reveal both Spenser's peculiar worldview and the true nature of their own special relationship. This 1982 novel, the ninth in the series, explores more explicitly than most of Parker's novels the ethical relativism that underscores Spenser's decisions. As our hero tells a pimp he is threatening at one point in a marvelous moment of revelation, "I do what I can, not what I should." The title for this novel is taken from a line of Yeats' poem "The Second Coming" that speaks to "The ceremony of innocence" being drowned. In the book's conclusion Spenser tries to make the best of a bad situation and the tragedy of April's fate is certainly a different type than we have encountered in these books in the past. This is the sort of intimate case that suits Spenser best, played out in the suburbs of Boston and the city's Combat Zone instead of Hollywood or other exotic locales. Besides, he does more cooking when he is at home or hanging out with Susan. "Ceremony" is one of the best of Robert B. Parker's early Spenser novels.

Intriguing

I have read many of Mr. Parkers books on Spenser and find them very hard to put down. I enjoyed the television series, also and enjoy the relationship between Hawk, Spenser and Susan. I would like to get a list of his older books, which I don't have.