Book Report #15 of 26

Family Honor

by 

Robert B. Parker

After this book I've decided to take a break from reading novels.  But I've established the foundation for two series that I'll concentrate on for the remainder of the year.  The first series is the Harry Bosch books by Michael Connelly which I wrote about in Book Report #14.  The other is the Sunny Randall series by Robert B. Parker. I chose it because it was a side project for the wonderful Mr. Parker; Spenser is a very long series dating back to the 1970's and I've read most of them (but not all).  There are only six books with Sunny Randall and I thought this would make a nice project for my book reading challenged.

So, Family Honor - well, it was okay.  Once again we are dealing with book one of a series so there is a lot of foundation to set up; who is Sunny, what kind of person is she, who are her friends and so on.  I'd have to say that she is not too far removed from good 'ol Spenser.  She's pretty confident, smart and knows herself very well.  She paints instead of boxes and she's not much of a fighter.  But she can gather the help from her friends who have the skills that she lacks.  I like Sunny but I really need to read more to get an idea as to her character.

The one aspect of the book that simply did not work for me was Sunny's relationship with her ex-husband.  He comes form a "connected" family although he has always professed that he was not part of the family business.  But this was still too much for Sunny to live with and so she separated from him.  Still there is a lot of pent up attraction between them so they keep getting re-involved; usually because Sunny needs something from him.

I can't quite put my finger on what it is with their relationship that I don't like but, somehow, the whole situation comes up flat and just a bit far fetched.  I don't know - I just don't like this relationship.

As always Parker's prose is a relaxed, easy read.  I tended to put the book down and not come back to it for days at a time but I could always jump back in.

I liked the book enough to read the second one.  I do hope the second one grabs me a bit more that this one though.