The Professor

A publisher hires wise-cracking, ex-fighter Spenser to protect one Rachel Wallace, a writer championing LGBT rights who is rubbing powerful types up the wrong way by exposing discrimination wherever she finds it. No problem, says Spencer, until he actually meets Wallace. Unromantic sparks fly, Spenser is sacked and then his client gets kidnapped. How was your day?

This short novel (111 pages in my copy) goes down very nicely. In the first half Spenser – with much humour and integrity – withstands a full-frontal verbal assault from the client from hell. The highly politicised Rachel Wallace does not do humour and she’s not happy with Spenser getting physical when she’s threatened by demonstrators, which renders him impotently checking identities at her gigs and sitting outside her hotel room when she’s inside ordering room service and having a little ooh-la-la. Her brand of identity politics is unassailable – Parker, Spenser and Wallace are all on the side of the angels – but thanks to her spikiness and clear distaste of Spenser’s machismo the novel gets to dance a little around the male hero complex, all while Spenser cracks wise and quotes Shakespeare. Personality-wise, Wallace put me in mind of late-period Patricia Highsmith, another gay writer whose personality was more than a little difficult. Parker is careful to give Wallace shades of grey, moments of vulnerability and connection with Spenser and a tender relationship with her lover that catches even Spenser off guard but frankly I wouldn’t have lasted as long as him on that gig, certainly not after Wallace slaps him. The fact that he does hang in there, until she tells him to get lost, very much gets us on his side. Spenser heading doggedly out into the snow to find Wallace when she’s been kidnapped will either have you cheering or pitying the man for his tenacity.

When Wallace is kidnapped Spenser, reflexly, goes digging among the local Klan low-lives, unpicking a rich-type demonstrator and tracking down the two shady types who tried to run he and Rachel off the road. He has a nice romantic evening in (steaks, mushrooms, rice pilaf; “Spencer’s the name, cooking’s the game”) with his partner Susan and, in contrast, next day gets his head kicked in, winding up face down in the bloodied snow for his trouble. The cops are none too pleased with Spenser’s involvement either, letting him do all the heavy lifting and fisticuffs so they get the intel without any pesky assault charges. Spenser throughout is delightfully wry, people constantly tell him he’s not funny, but it’s humour and his relationship with Susan which sets him apart from most other angst-ridden, alcoholic private investigators. He has a sunnier disposition than most, afflicted merely with a conscience and in this narrative you desperately want him to have his moment, desperately hopeful that Wallace at least thanks him for his troubles. Spenser is a New Man before the term was invented: you can be a tough guy and keep yourself in shape but still be witty. You can be relentlessly pummelled by Rachel Wallace’s identity politics but still keep your sense of humour and integrity intact. You can rescue the girl and still burst into tears. All of which probably made Parker the wrong person to write the sequel to “The Big Sleep” back in 1991 (yes, they tried franchising Chandler), earning himself a rather snotty review by one Martin Amis.

My only other encounter with Spenser has been via Parker’s “The Godwulf Manuscript” which memorably mixed art theft, student murder, drugs and ritualism. That and “Looking For Rachel Wallace” definitely piques my interest for more. The USP is Spenser’s voice and character and that, I’ll bet, is largely responsible for the longevity of the character. After two short novels I like the guy. I want to see what else he gets up to. “If I could find Rachel Wallace, I might believe in God.”