"Being a professor and working are not the same thing. The academic community is composed largely of nitwits. If I may generalize. People who don't know very much about what matters very much, who view life through literature rather than the other way around." - Robert B. Parker


Q: What does the Orson Welles film, A Touch of Evil, have in common with Robert B. Parker’s novel, Hush Money?

A: Both wallow in the seedy and corrupt side of life so thoroughly that upon finishing either one, you feel like running into the shower and turning on the hot water just to get the grime off.


The above quote — not from this book — reflects how Parker, who had spent time in academia, felt about what he observed and experienced there. This is what Spenser says in Hush Money:

“Whenever I got involved with anything related to a university, I was reminded of how seriously everyone took everything, particularly themselves, and I had to keep a firm grip on my impulse to make fun.” — Spenser

In essence, Hush Money is a scathing indictment of the institutions of supposedly higher learning; its pretension and self-importance; its overwhelming liberalism and left-leaning, and its disdain for anyone who doesn’t fall in line with university thinking; and the utter hypocrisy of many — but not all — with PhDs who have bought into such. Perhaps no statement in the novel sums this up better than the one by a faculty member whom Spenser likes:

“They think it (a Ph.D) empowers their superior insight into government and foreign policy and race relations and such. In addition these people are put into an environment where daily, they judge themselves against a standard set by eighteen-or twenty-year-old kids who know little if anything about the subject matter in which their professors are expert.” — “Exemplar of the species is Lillian Temple. There is no liberal agenda, however goofy, that will not attract her attention. There is no hypocrisy, however bald, that she will not endure if she can convince herself that it is in the service of right thinking.” — Tommy Harmon

Harmon is a faculty member, and one of the scarce decent people of integrity Spenser encounters while investigating whether a black professor named by his father after Jackie Robinson, and who is not the “right” kind of black guy, has been denied tenure unfairly. The man who named him is Bobby Nevins, an important figure in Hawk’s path out of the ghetto, which we at least get a surface peek at in this one. We also get the extraordinary revelation, that one of the male black professors at the university, who has since changed his name, once tried to seduce young Hawk.

Yes, the seediness is high, here, but it hardly ends there. In fact, it’s only just beginning. In addition to being a hard and unpleasant look at academia, this is a hard and unpleasant look at the male gay community, and it begins bothering Spenser. Just how bad it is, is revealed by gay cop, Lee Farrell’s comments to Spenser when it becomes obvious the case is making him quite uncomfortable:

“Lemme tell you what’s bothering you. You’re chasing along after whatever it is that you can’t quite catch, and every gay person you encounter is sleazy, crooked, second rate, and generally unpleasant. And, being a basically decent guy, despite the smart mouth, you fear that maybe you are prejudiced and it’s clouding your judgement. Same thing happens to me with blacks. I spend two months on drug-related homicide and everybody’s black, and everybody’s a vicious sleaze bag, and I begin to wonder, is it me? No. We deal with the worst. You got a case involving murder and blackmail, most of the people you meet are going to be scumbags.”

That almost sums up the book, as this is a walk on the sleazy side, and the ones with the most education, may be the sleaziest. Their hypocrisy is, indeed, as pointed out here, breathtaking. Looking into what seems frivolous at first, as a favor to Hawk, Spenser discovers that a suicide linked to Nevins was probably murder. It was the rumor that Nevins is gay, and having an affair with the student which kept him from attaining tenure. But Nevins is a black who doesn’t fit into an academia profile others would like. Being fairly conservative in his approach to teaching, preferring his English students to learn about dead white guys like Shakespeare, rather than studying Modern Black Anger, has not won him friends and influence. Spenser isn’t even certain Nevins is gay, much less that he was connected to the murdered student. And Nevins isn’t saying. His reason for remaining silent on the issue, which is revealed late in the novel, show him to be more like his father, Bobby Nevins, than either Robinson or Spenser had imagined.

Amir is the professor who had hit on Hawk years ago, and there is a palpable disgust here from Hawk. Spenser can’t even figure out why Hawk dislikes him so much, because he’s just another sleazy, self-important member of academia using the situation and culture for his own aggrandizement. In other words, nothing new under the sun for university life. When the reason for Hawk’s disdain is finally revealed, it is shocking. Though at this point, the series had become more entertainment than substance, it at least gave readers a glimpse into Hawk’s past, and fleshed his character out to some minor degree. Not enough that it would eclipse the Susan and Spenser show, but a little. I’ll get to that portion of the novel in a bit.

First, there is a grad-student paper called OUTrageous, which has been outing gay people on campus and off. But it turns out that someone was involved in blackmail as well. And there is a huge fund the victim had which his mother knew nothing about. It gets sleazier from there. Then Parker suddenly realizes he’s been taking an almost conservative tack, so he throws in a far fringe right leader and some more sleaze and hypocrisy incurs. It’s fair game, of course, as whackadoodle and slimy is everywhere. Yet it feels a bit like an afterthought by Parker. The new plot thread — a loose term when it comes to the middle and later Parkers — seems pulled out of the blue. It feels to this reader more like it is inserted by Parker to reclaim some of his Boston-liberal street-cred, rather than owning this particular story itself, and the dark corners of liberal hypocrisy to which it had taken him. But it could also have been due to Parker’s laziness in plotting, which had taken a back seat to the Susan Silverman show at this point. Maybe it was a little of both.

So that Parker could work his precious — imagine Gollum’s voice — into this one, we get a second case that Spenser works on as a favor to Susan. It seems a good friend of hers is being stalked. KC is artificial in nearly every way except her stunning, Hedy Lamarr-like beauty, and her voracious need for male affection. Naturally, of course, she would be an old pal of Susan’s, and naturally, she’s a head-case. Once she latches onto Spenser, however, it becomes quite obvious their friendship is as shallow as they are. But KC obviously does know Susan very well:

“What’s so great about Susan? Seriously, what’s so special about her? I’ve known her since we were in college. She’s so vain, for God’s sake. — And she’s so pretentious, for God’s sake.” — KC to Spenser

KC goes on to say that Susan is too vain and pretentious to even enjoy lovemaking. KC is a little twisted herself, but the solution to getting her off Spenser and in the direction of therapy is simplistic and gag-worthy. Susan to the rescue! Just have something for your stomach handy because it will churn as your eyes roll. It’s less unpleasant than some later scenes in the main story-line, however. They will definitely make you want to shower quickly. But it’s the sign of a good story if it can make you feel like that.

Parker’s disdain for academia is palpable here, yet each time he shows something ugly, he has to cop out just that tiny bit, marginalize it so that a fraction of its impact is lost. When a writer has something to say, and it’s important, people will not always like you. Here, and in a few other books, Parker would go right to the edge, then pull back toward political correctness, as if he didn’t want people to dislike him. In essence, Hush Money is like that Seinfeld episode which has the catchphrase, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that” but minus the laughter.

Still, Hush Money is a very interesting read, with some good stuff to recommend it. There is a wonderful opening paragraph about the music of baseball which has somehow been lost in modern times. Anyone who loves baseball will enjoy those opening comments. And there is a Brian Donlevy mention for fans of classic film which is a gem:

“I raised both eyebrows. I could raise one eyebrow like Brian Donlevy, but I didn’t very often, because most people didn’t know who Brian Donlevy was, or what I was doing with my face.”

I couldn’t stop laughing for a while after that one, but there aren’t many moments of laughter here. It is, however, pretty good for a Spenser story from this period, and worth reading. ( )

First edition as new

Classic Spenser. Not too convoluted but with a good amount of mystery inbetween lots of humor. ( )

Hush Money is the 26th Spenser novel written by Robert B. Parker. Like all of Parker's work it is well written, humorous and held my interest to the end. The bad guys and victims were different and the main characters were the same. Since Parker's death in 2010 other writers have continued the Spenser franchise. I tried one of those and quite after the 3rd chapter. Nobody could write dialog like Parker. Especially when Spenser the protagonist and his friend Hawk the self described thug are talking. Parker's dialog is simple and believable, just few words at a time. Few can match him. ( )

Spenser seeks those who blocked black professor's tenure