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A review by brettt
Old Black Magic by Ace Atkins
3.0
With each outing, Ace Atkins gets more comfortable and surer in writing about Robert B. Parker's iconic Boston private investigator, Spenser. In Old Black Magic, his seventh Spenser book, Atkins offers a combination of solid Spenserian voice with a confusing mystery that takes one twist too many and doesn't really make as much sense in the end as it should.
Twenty years ago, a museum theft rocked the Boston art world and the paintings stolen have never been seen since. Now paint chips from one of them have been sent to a Boston journalist and the museum's board of directors wants a private detective to help broker the payment the museum will make to those who have the paintings now.
Of course, it's not that simple, and when the initial payoff goes bad Spenser will have to find the stolen artwork his way. Whether his way will sit well with the museum directors and the old mobsters who may have been involved in the original theft has yet to be seen, but that's not the kind of thing that keeps Spenser from doing what he thinks is right.
As mentioned above, the core of Magic is a mystery: Who took the paintings and where are they now? Whether because the whole puzzle won't fit together or the picture in Atkins' mind simply doesn't come across to the reader, the ultimate solution to those questions has too many threads to really feel finished. That misstep is a shame, because Magic features one of the best pictures of Spenser's mobster pal Vinnie Morris since 1995's Walking Shadow. It would take a die-hard Parkerphile to deny that these are recognizably Parker's characters, but they're working in service to an idea that probably needed some more development time in order to rise to the next level.
Original available here.
Twenty years ago, a museum theft rocked the Boston art world and the paintings stolen have never been seen since. Now paint chips from one of them have been sent to a Boston journalist and the museum's board of directors wants a private detective to help broker the payment the museum will make to those who have the paintings now.
Of course, it's not that simple, and when the initial payoff goes bad Spenser will have to find the stolen artwork his way. Whether his way will sit well with the museum directors and the old mobsters who may have been involved in the original theft has yet to be seen, but that's not the kind of thing that keeps Spenser from doing what he thinks is right.
As mentioned above, the core of Magic is a mystery: Who took the paintings and where are they now? Whether because the whole puzzle won't fit together or the picture in Atkins' mind simply doesn't come across to the reader, the ultimate solution to those questions has too many threads to really feel finished. That misstep is a shame, because Magic features one of the best pictures of Spenser's mobster pal Vinnie Morris since 1995's Walking Shadow. It would take a die-hard Parkerphile to deny that these are recognizably Parker's characters, but they're working in service to an idea that probably needed some more development time in order to rise to the next level.
Original available here.