Book Review: Chasing the Bear (A Young Spenser Novel)

Chasing the Bear: A Young Spenser Novel, by Robert Parker (Philomel Books [Penguin Young Readers Group], $14.99 HB, 169pp, 2009)

Remember Sheldon and then young Sheldon of the Big Bang Theory? Now we have Spenser and young Spenser, the PI (private investigator). We have 54 (or 40) Spenser books as well as other series that author Robert Parker has bestowed us with. 

Chasing the Bear begins in today's world (not the world of Spenser's childhood) with his girlfriend Susan, a brilliant Harvard psychiatrist,  and Spenser having a conversation in author Robert Parker's delightful manner: full of one-liners that come out with a bang over and over again - delightful!

Young Spenser is 14 and manages to save a friend who is a girl, not a girl friend, then inserts himself into a bullying situation. And young Spenser is raised by his father and two uncles, a family not known before in literature but unique and with plenty of situations to get into. 

Adults will like this book as it vacillates between the young Spenser of yore and the current-day of Spenser and his girl friend. Young boys will like this book for all the boxing terms and even young girls will like this book, skipping over the fights, but dwelling on young love.

If you are familiar with the Robert Parker who-dun-its, you will like this book, if not, you may just become a fan - and there is always a dog named Pearl!