Sixkill (Spenser Series #39)

by Robert B. Parker Narrated by Joe Mantegna

Overview

The last Spenser novel completed by Robert B. Parker.

On location in Boston, bad-boy actor Jumbo Nelson is accused of the rape and murder of a young woman. From the start the case seems fishy, so the Boston PD calls on Spenser to investigate. Things don't look so good for Jumbo, whose appetites for food, booze, and sex are as outsized as his name. He was the studio's biggest star, but he's become its biggest liability.

In the course of the investigation, Spenser encounters Jumbo's bodyguard: a young former football-playing Native American named Zebulon Sixkill. He acts tough, but Spenser sees something more within the young man. Despite the odd circumstances, the two forge an unlikely alliance, with Spenser serving as mentor. As the case grows darker and secrets about both Jumbo and the dead woman come to light, it's Spenser-with Sixkill at his side-who must put things right.

Editorial Reviews

Marilyn Stasio

…Spenser applies his usual skills (one part muscle flexing to three parts snappy repartee) to a case in which mobsters and movie people figure prominently. But Parker's real coup in this novel is introducing us to Zebulon Sixkill, the athletically gifted Cree Indian Spenser rescues from a demeaning job as Jumbo's "driver, booze buddy and pimp." It's too sad to think about the further adventures these two might have had…
—The New York Times

Publishers Weekly

An intriguing new supporting character and the usual entertaining dialogue lift the 39th and, sadly, last Spenser novel (after Painted Ladies) from MWA Grand Master Parker (1932–2010). When 20-year-old Dawn Lopata expires of apparent asphyxiation after having sex with megamovie star Jumbo Nelson in his hotel room, Spenser's best friend in the Boston PD, Capt. Martin Quirk, arranges for Nelson's defense attorney to hire Spenser. Though it appears the obnoxious Nelson killed Lopata, Quirk has his doubts. Spenser's initial attempt to get Nelson to talk about what happened ends in mutual threats and insults. While the truth about the fatal night takes a backseat for too long to make the resolution satisfying, the scenes featuring Spenser's longtime love interest, Susan Silverman, are as snappy as ever. Zebulon "Z" Sixkill, the actor's American Indian bodyguard with whom the PI develops an unexpected relationship, would probably have gotten more play in future books had Parker lived to write them. (May)

Library Journal

Parker's final Spenser book is a reminder of just how much we'll miss the beloved crime writer, who died in January 2010. Zebulon Sixkill, a Cree Indian whose college football career was sidetracked by the love of a bad woman, is the bodyguard for Jumbo Nelson, a (physically) huge movie star working in Boston. Jumbo's outsized appetites leave a young woman dead, and with Z the only potential witness, Jumbo's guilt or innocence becomes an open question. When Jumbo fires Z, Spenser takes him in and refines Z from an intimidating presence to a genuinely dangerous man. When Spenser tells Susan Silverman, "I know what I like and what I don't like, and what I'm willing to do and what I'm not, and I try to be guided by that," readers couldn't ask for a better epitaph for Spenser and Parker. [See Prepub Alert, 11/1/10.]

JULY 2011 - AudioFile

In the late Robert B. Parker’s final Spenser mystery, the intrepid private eye takes a movie star’s troubled ex-bodyguard under his wing—both to provide guidance and to find out if the star he used to work for was responsible for the death of a young groupie. Aside from making Spenser’s quietly threatening police chief buddy into a shrill carnival barker, series veteran Joe Mantegna does his usual excellent job communicating the story’s humor and tension, as well as the characters’ turbulent undercurrents. The bodyguard character, Zebulon Sixkill, is further illuminated by Mantegna during several flashback chapters. While the book contains themes and scenarios fans have seen many times before, SIXKILL provides a strong swan song to the author’s entertaining career. J.P.M. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

The mysterious death of a star-struck young woman who struck a star's fancy provides the basis for Spenser's valedictory outing.

One minute Dawn Lopata was alive in her hotel-room bed, the next she was dead, somehow strangled while she was in the bathroom. At least that's the story Jumbo Nelson tells. Since it's not much of a story, his movie studio hires Rita Fiore's Boston law firm to dig deeper, and Rita hires Spenser to do the real digging. The job's not easy, because among all of Spenser's checkered clientele (Painted Ladies,2010, etc.), Jumbo is the most repellent, a truculent brat who cares about nothing but his own oversized appetites. It's no surprise when he fires Spenser and Rita, leaving Spenser to work the case pro bono and giving him the potential to irritate some very influential people. The only bright spot is Jumbo's Cree bodyguard, Zebulon Sixkill. On their first encounter, Spenser and Z sniff around each other; on their second, Spenser thrashes Z. But Spenser breaks the mold when Z turns up asleep outside Spenser's office door, and Spenser takes him in and starts the one-time college-football star, whose back story is presented through a series of awkward flashbacks, on the road to redemption. As luck would have it, the road winds through some familiar areas: serving as a sparring partner, passing on crucial information about Dawn Lopata's last moments, backing up Spenser's play against the local thugs hired to beat him up, and cutting back on the sauce so that he'll be sharp enough to help deal with the inevitable tough guys from Hollywood who regard Jumbo as a cash cow whose value has to be maintained no matter what.

By no means as substantial or resourceful as Parker's best, but a treasurable demonstration of the bromide that "life is mostly metaphor"—at least to the peerless private eye and his fans.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169120424
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	05/03/2011
Series:	Spenser Series , #39
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	1,065,152

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