On Edge

© by Gerald So | 5:30 AM

With the new Spenser continuation novel published this week, several Amazon reviews have called it too political, featuring as it does a progressive congresswoman threatened by a white nationalist militia. I say why not have Spenser confront this present threat? Since his debut in 1973, Spenser has upset preconceived notions of manhood, religion, race, indeed even good and evil. He's an ex-boxer who enjoys poetry and cooking. He's a Gentile in love with a Jew. He's a white man whose best friend is black. He's a good guy who befriends bad guys.

Today's audience may have forgotten or never known all that because in forty years of writing Spenser, Robert B. Parker blurred how much story time had passed. Though that prolonged the series, it prevented him addressing more current events. TV's SPENSER: FOR HIRE held to the 1980s' standards. Later basic cable movies were similarly constrained. Spenser's true nature and full potential, though, are in shaking the trees, showing us people are and can be more than what we first perceive.

Parker's estate gave Ace Atkins a general order to keep Spenser contemporary. He chose to limit his run, letting him mirror real events and people during his time. Tackling white nationalism was a bold choice for a finale, but it's also in Spenser's makeup. If it shakes up some readers, that's the point.