Mortal Stakes, Audio Book

Mortal Stakes (1975/2009) Robert B. Parker narrated by Michael Prichard (Spenser)

Baseball!

For serious looking at baseball there are few places better than Fenway Park. The stands are close to the playing field, the fences are a hopeful green, and the young men in their white uniforms are working on real grass, the authentic natural article; under the actual sky in the temperature as it really is.

Patricia Utley!

“Mr. Spenser,” she said, “I’m Patricia Utley,” and put out her hand. I shook it. She looked as if she might have read all the books and understood them. She was fortyish, small and blond with good bones and big black-rimmed round glasses. Her hair was pulled back tight against her head with a bun in the back. She was wearing an off-white sleeveless linen dress with blue and green piping at the hem and along the neckline. Her legs were bare and tanned.

A very different world.

I got to Redford at twenty of seven and checked into a two-story Holiday Inn just north of town that offered a view of the river and a swimming pool. The dining room was open and more than half empty. I ordered a draft beer and looked at the menu. The beer came in an enormous schooner. I ordered Wiener schnitzel and fresh garden vegetables and was startled to find when it came that it was excellent.

And Spenser still becoming the man he is in later books.

I drove north on 1 toward Smithfield. On the way I stopped and bought a quart of Wild Turkey bourbon. Turning off Route 1 toward Smith-field Center, I twisted the top off, took a mouthful, rinsed my mouth, spit out the window, and drank about four ounces from the bottle. My stomach jumped when the booze hit it, but then it steadied and held. I was coming back.

In my apartment I said to Brenda, “Want some brandy or would you like to get right to the necking?”

“Actually, cookie, I would like first to take a shower.”

“A shower?”

“Uh-huh. You pour us two big snifters of brandy and hop into bed, and I’ll come along in a few minutes.”

Even recorded more than 20 years after the book was written, this audio book is not what modern audiences expect.

It’s not awful–the awful narrator comes along later in the series–but it’s reading rather than narrating. And the production quality is not like a modern listener would expect.

But it’s still a very good book.

Publisher: Random House Audio

Rating: 8/10

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