- Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
- Publisher: Berkley; Reprint edition (Jun 7 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0425199630
- ISBN-13: 978-0425199633
- Product Dimensions: 17.3 x 10.6 x 2.1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 118 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #313,034 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Set in 1947, Parker's superb new novel imagines what it was like for Jackie Robinson, and more centrally for Robinson's (fictional) bodyguard, to see the color barrier broken in Major League baseball. This isn't Parker's first foray outside the mystery genre, though he remains best known for his Spenser PI series (this year's (Bad Business, etc.); in 2001 he dramatized Wyatt Earp in (Gunman's Rhapsody, and earlier he excelled with Perchance to Dream, Wilderness and Love and Glory. In an unusual gambit, however, this time he mixes his storytelling with his firsthand reminiscences (in chapters titled "Bobby") of growing up as a devoted Dodgers fan, a move that adds resonance and a sense of wonder to the taut narrative. The fiction, told in the third person, focuses on Joseph Burke, a WWII vet grievously wounded physically and emotionally by combat and its aftermath. Burke is a hired gun who allows himself no feelings, but when he signs on with Dodger owner Branch Rickey to protect Robinson from racist violence during the ballplayer's rookie season, he comes to respect, then love, the proud, controversial player. Burke also falls for Lauren, a self-destructive society girl with mob connections whom he worked for before Robinson, and it's from Lauren's troubles and the threat of violence surrounding Robinson that the novel's hard, smart action arises. Burke is a tough guy, and the narrative not set around baseball fields takes place in the white and black underworlds as Burke plays various gangsters against one another to protect both Lauren and Robinson. Parker, always a clean writer, has never written so spare and tight a book; this should be required reading for all aspiring storytellers. Parker fans will recognize with joy many of the author's lifelong themes (primarily, honor and the redemptive power of love), and in the Burke/Robinson dynamic, echoes of Spenser/Hawk (the PI's black colleague). Here they will treasure the very essence of Parker in a masterful recreation of a turbulent era that's not only a great and gripping crime novel but also one of the most evocative baseball novels ever written.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
The problem with this new novel from the creator of hard-boiled uber-hero Spenser is simple: this is a Spenser novel with new names. Burke is the Spenser clone. He's back from World War II after sustaining severe wounds. After his bride leaves him, he loses his emotional center. After his boxing career fizzles, he hires himself out as a tough guy. (Sound familiar Spenser fans?) A Mob guy refers Burke to Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who needs someone to protect Jackie Robinson, who is about to become baseball's first black player. Burke and Robinson swap lots of good-natured racial barbs (a la Spenser and Hawk), while Burke confronts the local Mob with the help of a gunsel named Cash (Vince Haller by another name). Interspersed among the mayhem are somewhat disconcerting (why here?) recollections (assumed to be Parker's) of trips to the ballpark in the forties. So is this book bad? No, it's quite good actually, but Parker is at a point in his career (he got there a long time ago) where great athletes sometimes find themselves: 50 more homers for Barry Bonds? Not as many as last year! Despite the similarities to his Spenser series, Parker's characterizations of Burke and Robinson will resonate with readers because, as always, Parker connects with the romantic tough guy residing in so many souls. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
JOSEPH BURKE GOT it on Guadalcanal, at Bloody Ridge, five .25 caliber slugs from a Jap light machine gun, stitched across him in a neatly punctuated line. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
JOSEPH BURKE GOT it on Guadalcanal, at Bloody Ridge, five .25 caliber slugs from a Jap light machine gun, stitched across him in a neatly punctuated line. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Probably a perfect book,
By
This review is from: Double Play (Mass Market Paperback)
I loved this book. In fact I gave a copy to each of my family last Christmas. I know very little about baseball. I had heard of Jackie Robinson, of course, but did not know Robert B Parker's work at all. That has changed.Parker takes the iconic Jackie Robinson and delivers an honourable, courageous, very private man with no illusions about his role, the society that reviles and admires him, fans, baseball or his place in history. Even within the world of baseball he stands apart yet he remains as much or more of a hero than ever. Parker carefully presents a Jackie Robinson once removed from both reader and author. He is isolated from the reader, kept at enough of a distance we never intrude on Jackie Robinson's private thoughts, his conversations with his wife and family or with himself. The man retains the privacy and heroic status to which he is entitled and yet,the reader will feel he has walked awhile with a great man and has been touched by something rare and very special. This book is deceptively simple like much of Parker's work but it is possibly the best thing he ever wrote.
5.0 out of 5 stars
At the top of his form,
By
This review is from: Double Play (Hardcover)
This is Parker on the stretch, away from his favorite characters, away from his Boston setting, plunged into the past. When he's stretched he's at the top of his form and demonstrates his moves on every page.Most of all, the Jackie Robinson story is a story about a time and the first third of the book is background. Parker does the postwar period masterfully and the interspersed personal chapters are a nice, innovative touch. They've drawn some criticism, unwarranted in my opinion. The characters are fresh, the plotting and dialogue as economical as the best Parker, the resolution touching. I read it straight through, disrupting all of my prior plans for the day, and not regretting a moment of it.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Welcome Back, Mr. Parker!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Double Play (Hardcover)
A couple of the most recent Spenser books were, to me, short of the mark, as if Parker were a bit tired of the character. And his constant repetition of key phrases said by characters in his three series was more than annoying. ("We'd be fools not to" being the worst. There are others. Parker's publishers/editors fall down on their job here.) Double Play was like a breath of fresh air. How a reviewer can simply say Burke is a Spenser clone is quite beyond me. He's a *very* different character, a most interesting and subtley complex one. Robinson is black. Hawk is black. And there any comparison ends. Robinson is a very well developed character, in my estimation, and rings true as the man we came to know in history. Bringing together both the criminal elements and the extreme racism of those times I thought an excellent tool as well as being true to life. Those who weren't alive back then simply don't understand how much a part of daily life these things were, even though submerged in "good company." (Unfortunately, they're both with us still.) I was also impressed by Parker's grasp of the effects of war on the Burke character, how he retreated inward emotionally, the building of his need and desire to expand again as a human being. I'd recommend this one to anyone.
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