Synopses & Reviews
A knock on Spenseras office door can only mean one thing: a new case. This time the visitor is a local lawyer with an interesting story. Elizabeth Shaw specializes in wills and trusts at the Boston law firm of Shaw & Cartwright, and over the years sheas developed a friendship with wives of very wealthy men. However, these rich wives have a mutual secret: theyave all had an affair with a man named Gary Eisenhowera and now heas blackmailing them for money. Shaw hires Spenser to make Eisenhower acease and desist, a so to speak, but when women start turning up dead, Spenseras assignment goes from blackmail to murder.
As matters become more complicated, Spenseras longtime love, Susan, begins offering some input by analyzing Eisenhoweras behavior patterns in hopes of opening up a new avenue of investigation. It seems that not all of Garyas women are rich. So if heas not using them for blackmail, then what is his purpose? Spenser switches tactics to focus on the husbands, only to find that innocence and guilt may be two sides of the same coin.
With its eloquently spare prose and some of the best supporting characters to grace the printed page, The Professional is further proof that a t]hereas hardly an author in the crime novel business like Parkera (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).