Michael Brown's Reviews > Robert B. Parker's Old Black Magic

For the longest time, Parker had a quick and lazy style. Spenser would say something and the chapter ended. Stone proposed a course of action and the chapter ended. Cole shot someone and again the chapter ended. Fifty - sixty plus chapters and the story ended. You spent a few hours reading and moved on to another book. All of the new authors have more or less copied this format and the three main series flow along as quick reads with little real plot or character development. While fun to follow the main characters everything seems to be just a way to sell a new book with a simple story that might have some 'old style' heavy action but mostly surrounded by fluff and filler.

Atkins has changed this with Old Black Magic. We have a more complex story with much more character and plot coverage. The action is a detection process with all the false starts, double twists, miss directions and eureka moments stretched around the typical Spenser sense of humor dialog and intuitive thought periods. One of the best stories in this series in a long time for the 'old style' Spenser ( Parker ) character.