Robert B. Parker Overload!

So . . . I also caught up with the books I hadn't read in the Sunny Randall series.  I like Sunny, sort of reluctantly, so I was happy to find there were four I hadn't read. On Robert B. Parker's website, it says he wrote the series so Helen Hunt would have a Parker movie role.  Really Sunny's just a female Spenser.  They talk and think alike, so the books really aren't noticeably different from the Spenser books.  Except for no Hawk, which is a definite negative.  She has Spike, though, and Spike's wonderful.  And Rosie instead of Pearl for us dog lovers.

I can't quite get my head around Shrink Rap.  The actual book didn't seem familiar, but the plot was so deja vu that I couldn't help wondering if I'd read the book before.  It almost seems like Parker might have used this same plot (woman has to go undercover to trap a psychiatrist who is victimizing women) in a Spenser novel.  Usually I remember actual scenes or phrases from books I've already read, and this didn't ring any of those bells.  Still . . . this plot . . . I've been there before.

Melancholoy Baby was my least favorite of the remaining three because you know who the "who" in "who dunit" is long before the end.  The "mystery" you're left with is "How will they prove it?"  Which isn't that interesting.

The best part about Blue Screen was that it combined Sunny and another Parker character, Jesse Stone.  Sunny and Jesse seem made for each other because they're both having problems moving on to a new relationship because they're so stuck on their exes.  There's some great chemistry there.  

However, I'm guessing some fans (or maybe Parker himself) had major objections, because by the time Spare Change opens, their relationship hasn't worked out.  It could just be because I read four in a row, but the whole angst-driven thing about the Sunny/Richie "relationship" is starting to get on my nerves.  (I'm not much on extracurricular angst, being a middle school teacher.)  Another thing that bothered me was that in Blue Screen Richie had remarried and was having a son.  But in Spare Change Richie is thinking about divorce and no child is mentioned.  What the heck happened to the kid?  Angst aside, the main plot of the book was engaging enough, and it would probably be a tie between Spare Change and Blue Screen for which of the four I liked best.

(R: sex, violence, language)