Split Image

I've read many books by Robert B. Parker. They're like snack food--not particularly nutritious, but hard to put down. In fact, on more than one occasion I've read them straight through in their entirety. I remember once leaving work from New York City to take a train out to my friend's house in Jersey. I started the book as I waited on the subway platform, and finished it as the New Jersey Transit train was pulling into my destination.

I haven't read a Parker novel in quite a while, and I think it's because while Parker is an incredibly prolific writer, he also seems to have gotten lazy (Parker died last year, so this is all in present tense). Maybe I was put off by his admitting in an interview that he never rewrites his material, which I don't think any other writer could claim. I don't doubt that he doesn't rewrite, because his books got to be very simple and without depth.

All of the Parker books I'd read were about Spenser, his Boston private eye. He had other series characters, and Split Image, which was his penultimate novel, featured two of them: Jesse Stone, the police chief of a small, coastal Massachusetts town, and Sunny Randall, a female private detective. I was new to both of these characters, but they are both sharply drawn, and have a casual sexual relationship as they get over their exes.

In fact, this book is more about character than plot. There really isn't much of a mystery here. There's a crime--two of them--as a gangster's henchmen is found murdered in the trunk of his car. Stone investigates, and finds that two gangsters, former rivals, live next to each other and are married to identical twin sisters. Stone digs deeper and finds out that these sisters have a reputation of swapping sexual partners (they are known as the "Bang Bang Sisters") without the partners knowing that they're not sleeping with the sister they think they're with.

A subplot involving Randall has her working for a couple trying to get their daughter out of a religious commune. This is one of those common private eye plots that has the detective acting like a white knight, doing what is right rather than what is in the best interests of her client. It's kind of a throwaway; Parker may have thought about it for an entire novel but realized it was too thin and shoved it into this book.

Split Image isn't much of a whodunit, and it's not high on suspense. Neither protagonist is ever in any danger--no shots are fired, and only a couple of punches are thrown (neither by the two heroes). Instead, it focuses on their weaknesses. Stone has a drinking problem, and Randall has daddy issues. Both of them are depicted in their respective analysts offices, having convenient epiphanies (Randall's shrink is Susan Silverman, Spenser's long-time lady love).

Parker is known for his terse, spare writing, making Hemingway seem chatty in comparison. He may have written the shortest sex scene ever, between Stone and Randall: "They made love." But while adjectives may slow him down, it at times becomes comical how he writes as if typing with one finger and on a deadline. The dialogue is equally spare, with most of the characters speaking sarcastically, to the point of glibness.

Parker's characters will live on, as other writers have been hired by his estate to carry them on. I hope they use a few more adjectives and adverbs, and maybe actually create a mystery to ponder.