| Review: Robert B. Parker, POTSHOT |
| Let me state right off the bat that I’m a woman
and that Potshot is my first and probably
last Parker novel, my first literary run-in with Spencer, Parker’s
famous gun-for-hire. I admit I approached it with some trepidation
since I’m not a particular fan of the detective genre, but the
fact that it was character-focused rather than plot-dependant helped.
Still, I felt compelled to wash my hands carefully after I finished
the final chapter since I wanted to make sure there were no leftover
traces of testosterone to seep through my pores. God knows what could
happen...I could start speaking in three-word sentences or give up
speech altogether in favor of significant shrugging. Lose my ability
to see all but the two most obvious ends of the spectrum. Come to
admire, even respect, the quiet, muscle-bound set who break legs on
command. And possibly start quoting obscure bits of poetry at inappropriate
times. But then that’s not quite fair, since I should also entertain the possibility of a positive side to high-intensity injections of Spencerian machismo. I could become endlessly wry, sarcastic, and droll. Uncannily perceptive when it comes to danger. A master of hand-to-hand combat. A crack shot. Afraid of nothing and in complete control of every moment of my life. Just think, I might become someone who meets any number of attackers and comes up a winner every time, a particularly attractive and unique perspective for a female. And there’s always the outside chance that men might start throwing themselves at me. Or would that be women throwing themselves at me? Guess I better stop here. The gender thing gets too confusing. I would assume that the majority of Parker’s readers are men since there’s such an extremely high level of manliness on every page. Plus, the sex and violence, at least in this novel, are primarily implied, making it a dynamite combination for everyone who’s really a thirteen-year-old male at heart. Parker has a practiced, consistent writing style. He’s spare. He draws his characters swiftly and puts them smack on the page. And speaking of characters, Potshot has about ten too many to keep the names straight. But since they all have more or less the same personality it doesn’t really seem to matter if the person slouching against the porch railing is Hawk or Chollo or Sapp or Bobby Horse. It’s easier to simply think of them as a unified Everyman. Just better-built, more taciturn, and decidedly more stoic and self-confident. Not to mention the strong potential for pay-per-violence lying just beneath the skin. The story line is interesting enough to keep you turning the page. There’s good and there’s evil. Although sometimes what seems good turns out to be evil, and Spencer operates just enough beneath the law to make decisions that get the job done, but would reflect poorly before a tribunal. He’s a commando, not an Eagle Scout. Potshot is a novel consisting almost entirely of dialogue, and Parker handles dialogue in an idiosyncratic style. Instead of giving the reader a visual indication for identifying a speaker by attaching the speech to one accompanying cue, as in: “Would you like another drink?” she asked. Sam nodded. “Please.” Parker separates the speech from one cue, making it necessary to add another: “Would you like another drink?” she asked. Sam nodded. “Please,” he said. As a result, there are so many ‘he saids’ and ‘she saids’ in this book that half-way through I found myself having to ignore them or go mad. Removing all these unnecessary attributions would probably shorten the book by a good twenty pages. Perhaps Potshot is not Parker at his best. I often have those days myself. And I understand perfectly that every book one reads needn’t be a struggle. Entertainment has its place, and it pays better. Still, the next time I’m in the mood for some tough-guy entertainment, I think I’ll turn on BBC America and catch Robbie Coltrane in a Cracker episode. He’s hard-as-nails, too, but he suffers enough to make it all seem quite real.
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