Book review: The Godwulf Manuscript by Robert B. Parker

Date finished: June 19, 2016
Year published: 1973
Genre: Mystery
Rating:  B+

Review: This is the very first in the long and wonderful Spenser series. I've decided to reread the lot, in order.

In this one, Spenser is hired to find a missing manuscript that was stolen from a college library. But that leads to investigations of drug selling, left wing cults, crazed professors ... and a few murders.

There are many pleasures to the Spenser series.  First, I like Parker's style of mystery: There is one plot, there are no huge conspiracies, no multi-generational sagas.  Bad guys do bad things.  Spenser finds them, usually after some violence, some humor and so on.

Another pleasure is Spenser himself.  Yes, he's big and he's strong and he's tough.  But he quotes poetry, he cooks, he listens to music, he's knowledgeable about many things.  He's interesting.

But one pleasure of reading them in order is that we are gradually introduced to a series of interesting characters.  In The Godwulf Manuscript none are yet in evidence.