The Spenser Novels
(Click Title For Book Details)
Spenser Related Publications
Other Fiction
Three Weeks in Spring
(With Joan Parker) |
1982
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Jesse Stone Novels
Sunny Randall Novels
Raymond Chandler
Non-Fiction
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The PI in Hammett and Chandler (300)
|
1984
|
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Parker on Writing (75)
|
1985
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Parker on Writing (300)
|
1985
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PLAYMATES
Published by
Penguin Putnam Inc.
March 1989
From the dust jacket of the hardcover:
Playmates is Parker's new supersizzler starring Spenser, the hard-boiled
Boston private eye with a chivalric code. This time Spenser's in for the
closest shave of his career when he discovers that college basketball
can be a killer sport.
When talent comes, can be graft be far behind? Dwayne Woodcock is
arguably the best power forward in all of college basketball, not only
the Big East Conference. So why, wonders Spenser, is he shaving points?
Leading his Taft U. team to yet another banner season, Dwayne isn't
throwing the games; he's just not winning them by enough to cover the
spread. Which means that somebody's getting rich off Woodcock's on-court
lapses, and Spenser's been hired by the powers at Taft to uncover the
whos, hows, and whys.
Abetted by his tough guy buddy, Hawk, and Susan Silverman, the sexy
psychotherapist who is his great good friend, Spenser finds himself
involved with all manner of sleaze artists--from corrupt academics to
wise-guy hoods with graduate degrees. As his search propels him from the
groves of academe into grungy bars and, finally, into a bloody
confrontation with almost certain death, Spenser battles to salvage the
soul of an arrogant young athlete - even if he has to go to hell and back
to do it...
This latest addition to the Spenser series is as spellbinding a thriller
as any Parker fan could ask for: Playmates is an unqualified success.
From the paperback edition:
Spenser scores again! In Robert B. Parker's newest, most electrifying
bestseller, America's favorite iron-pumping, gourmet-cooking private eye
smells corruption in college town. Taft University's hottest basketball
star is shaving points for quick cash. And if Spenser doesn't watch his
own footwork, the guilty parties will shave a few years off his life...
Buy This Book
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Paperback.
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SPENSARIUM'S APHORISMS AND ALLUSIONS
"Never knew somebody knew more stuff that didn't matter."
Hawk to Spenser in Chapter 29 of Taming a Seahose
Chapter 8
More deadly than the adder's sting," I said, "is the foul mouth of an unusually short gym owner."
Eighteen Hundred and Eleven
by Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Renowned Harvard Professor of English
Still at each step he dreads the adder's sting,
The Arab's javelin, or the tiger's spring;
With doubtful caution treads the echoing ground,
And asks where Troy or Babylon is found.
Complete text of Eighteen Hundred and Eleven
Chapter 20
Then I went to the front of the Cherokee and examined the two guys that we'd shot.
They were both dead. I walked back over to the quick and patted them down.
The Apostles' Creed
Peter: I believe in God the Father Almighty;
John: Maker of heaven and earth;
James: And in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord;
Andrew: Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost; born of the Virgin Mary;
Philip: Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried;
Thomas:He descended into hell, the third day he rose again from the dead;
Bartholomew: He ascended into heaven; sitteth at the right hand of God the Father
Almighty;
Matthew: From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead ;
James, (son of Alpheus): I believe In the Holy Ghost, the holy Catholic Church;
Simon Zelotes: The communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins;
Jude: The resurrection of the body;
Matthias: Life everlasting. Amen."
Chapter 24
Susan came with me when she could on the assumption that she was more academic
than I was and could add some insight. George Lyman Kittredge couldn't have added enough insight.
George Lyman Kittredge
Renowned Harvard Professor of English
There is an interesting Urban Legen regarding this gentleman. One day, the
famous Harvard philologist, arrived
a few minutes early to an empty classroom, and dropped his hat on
the desk. Then he remembered he had left something in his office and went
back to retrieve it.
On the way, he ran into a friend and fell into conversation, thus causing him
to lose track of time. Returning to the classroom ten minutes
later, Kittredge found that the students had departed.
At the next class session, the professor berated the class, saying that they
should have known he was there, since his hat was still on the desk.
The professor arrived on time for the following session. Inside, he found a
hat on every desk, but no students.
Chapter 24
""I'm doing a book on Ellen Glasgow, and I like to work on it when I'm not teaching."
Ellen Glasgow
1974-1945
Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow published her first novel, The Descendant, in
1897, when she was 24 years old. With this novel Glasgow began a literary career
encompassing four and a half decades and
comprising 20 novels, a collection of poems,
one of stories, and a book of literary criticism. Her autobiography, A Woman
Within, was published posthumously in 1954. In 1942 she received the Pulitzer Prize for her last published
novel, In This Our Life.
A biography of Ellen Glasgow
Chapter 24
"I know who Frederick Jackson Turner is," I said.
Frederick Jackson Turner
In 1893 a young Frederick Jackson Turner stood before the American Historical Association
and delivered his famous frontier thesis. To a less than enthusiastic audience, he argued that
"the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American
settlement westward explain American development"; that this frontier accounted for
American democracy and character; and that the frontier had closed forever with uncertain
consequences for the American future. Despite the indifference of Turner's first audience, his
essay would soon prove to be the single most influential piece of writing on American
history, with extraordinary impact both in intellectual circles and in popular literature.
Turner won the Pulitzer prize for history in 1933.
A biography of Frederick Jackson Turner
Chapter 32
"Yeah," I said. "What are you reading?"
"Book by Stephen Hawking," Hawk said. " 'Bout the universe."
"Only that?" I said.
A Brief History of Time
by Stephen Hawking
Originally published in 1988
A Brief History of Time, published in 1988, was a landmark volume in science writing and in
world-wide acclaim and popularity, with more than 9 million copies in print globally. The
original edition was on the cutting edge of what was then known about the origins and nature of
the universe.
Tenth anniversary ediition of "A Brief History of Time"
Chapter 36
"Love's different," I said. "It doesn't alter 'where it alteration finds.'"
William Shakespeare
Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
Click here for the complete text of Sonnet 116 and to hear it read!
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Spenser's Libations
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