Enjoy For Free The Judas Goat (Spenser, #5) Devised By Robert B. Parker Released Through Text

sentence:
p: " I need a Judas goat, "

space:
p: I rejected Flanders's offer of a cab and strolled back up the Strand toward the May fair in the slowly gathering evening.


p: "Tell him to get the first plane he can to London and call me at the May fair Hotel when he gets to Heathrow.
"

spelling:
p: I stopped hallway down and looked at the two mounted sentries in the sentry box outside the Horse Guards building.


case:
p: "if you can think of it somebody will do it," I said,

label:
p: We stopped on the way in the hot bright summer morning at a Dunkin' Donut shop, and had coffee and two plain donuts apiece.


p: "Did William Powell take Myrna Loy to a Dunkin' Donut shop"

grammar:
p: "If you see Zachary," Hawk said over his shoulder, "and you want to do him in, it okay.
"

cement:
p: I twisted his forefinger back as hard as I could and the automatic hit the cement floor,

Spenser turns his act international and tows Hawk alongthe honkie and the schwartze as he takes on terrorists, Just, wow.

I should have started a body count for the series,/I don't think Interpol would ever let Spenser and Hawk back into Europe after the blood bath they cause overseas in this one.


Hugh Dixon is a wealthy American businessman who had a wife and two kids until they were the random victims of a terrorist bombing in London.
Dixon is crippled, his family is killed, and hes got revenge on his mind so he hires Spenser to capture or kill the nine terrorists identified at the scene of the attack.


Once in London with no leads, Spenser uses himself as bait by putting a classified ad in the paper offering a reward for information about the bombing.
His plan succeeds a little too well, and hes soon got terrorists lined up and trying to kill him, Needing some backup, he hires Hawk to help him round up the gang, and theyll end up trying to stop another terrorist attack as well as avenge Dixons family as they track them across several countries.


This one marks several departures from the formula Parker had been working off to this point, This is much more of an action novel than a detective story, but Parker keeps Spenser grounded in what could have turned into an overthetop plot.
Spenser and Hawk work together for the first time, and the differences between the two are explored, Hawk thinks they should just locate the terrorists and shoot them in the head without warning, but hell follow Spensers lead since hes the one paying.
Spensers code demands that he at least give them a sporting chance to surrender, but hes having a tough time selling himself on the idea that hes little more than a gun for hire in this scenario.


Dixon is one of the few clients that Spenser will ever have that is not a complete dumbass, and that Spenser actually respects.
Parker was obviously doing a homage to The Big Sleep with Phillip Marlowes relationship to General Sternwood here,

Next up: Spenser misplaces a woman in sitelinkLooking for Rachel Wallace Worst of the series so far, I was just so bored!

This originally appeared at sitelinkThe Irresponsible Reader,

I looked at my situation, If they were going to shoot me, there was little to prevent them, Maybe they werent going to shoot me, but I couldnt plan much on that,

“You cant plan on the enemys intentions,” I said, “You have to plan on what he can do, not what he might, ”

A boy cleaning the tables looked at me oddly, “Beg pardon, sir"

“Just remarking on military strategy, Ever do that Sit around and talk to yourself about military strategy”

“No, sir, ”

“You re probably wise not to, "

We start with Spenser calling on Hugh Dixon, The word "rich" seems inadequate to express the wealth that Dixon seems to possess, Nowadays, he could probably hire a private security firm to do what he needsmaybe he could've in, too, But he's done his research and has decided to hire Spenser instead because he knows Spenser's integrity and priorities are what's kept him "in the minor league.
"

We're given a great description of Dixon:

Full front, his face was accurate enough, It looked the way of face should, but it was like a skillful and uninspired sculpture, There was no motion in the face, No sense that blood flowed beneath it and thoughts evolved the behind it, It was all surface, exact, detailed and dead,

Except the eyes, The eyes snarled with life and purpose, or something like that, I didn't know exactly what then, Now I do.

The eyes snarled with a need for revenge, That's pretty much all that's keeping Dixon going, A year before, he, his wife and daughters were in a London restaurant that was bombed, Dixon lived, although he almost died and lost the use of his legs, The rest of his family did not, He wants Spenser to do what the London police have failed to dofind the terrorists responsible and bringing them to justiceeither by apprehending them for the police or killing them.
Dixon remained conscious during the attack and has detailed descriptions of the personnel involved, Spenser agrees, after insisting that he doesn't do assassinationsunless forced out of selfdefense, he won't be killing anyone, It's all okay with Dixon, but you get the clear impression that he'd prefer they died,

Spenser makes travel arrangements including learning how to bring his gun into London, says goodbye to Susan, and leaves that night.
Dixon's Londonbased lawyer introduces him to a Scotland Yard inspector who worked the case, There's a group called Liberty who claimed responsibility for the bombing, They're smalltime, rightwing, and draw their membership from around Europethey're likely based in Amsterdam, but that's conjecture, Which really doesn't give Spenser much to work on,

So he tries a little something to draw them out, It results in two of them dying and Spenser being shot in the, ahem, "upper thigh, " It also gives Spenser a lead to some others, While he calls Susan to tell her what happened, he also asks her to do him a favorget word to Hawk that he could

use some help this both relieves and worries Susan, she wants him to have backup, but hates that he needs it.


From here, Spenser and Hawk follow leads for Liberty to Copenhagen and Amsterdam, They even have a brief confrontation with the leader of Liberty, a man named Paul, Paul's not one of the men directly involved in the death of the Dixons, however, Spenser and Hawk determine that Liberty has something planned for theOlympics in Montreal, and decide that even though the job is done, they need to stop Paul.


On the one hand, it's hard to believe that security at the Olympics is as lax as it appears, then againwas a different time.
Through a combination of luck and good guessing, there's a final confrontation with Paul and one of his top associates that ends in a ninepage fistfight between Spenser, Hawk, and a giant of a man named Zachary.
This fight blew my preteen/early teenaged mind when I first read it, and became the standard by which I judged all similar scenes in fiction there's one in Lee Child's Persuader that reminded me of this onealthough, Reacher didn't have anyone fighting on his side.


While there is some deduction at work, this is largely Spenser as vigilante, not as a private investigator, On the one hand, I prefer the P, I. On the other hand, it's a good story and it demonstrates another side of Spenser that we don't get to see much of early on.
And like the rest of these first twelve, it's hard for me to engage my critical faculties,

In addition to the globetrotting and the intense action scenes, we get Spenser's typical narration when it comes to describing places one of my favorite elements of each book and people.
Spenser's wit and compassion both get to shine, It's just a fun read, The scene that results in his upper thigh wound is one of my favorites in the seriescombining humor, tension, and action,

But the thing that struck me the most this time through is that what seems to really interest Parkermore than Spenser, more than this revenge story, or anything elseis Hawk.
We met him in the last book, but we didn't get that much time with him, just a handful of scenes, But he's all over this novel,

Spenser calling Hawk to come help represents a turning point in the series, It's not an automatic thing yet, but from here on out, it's more common for Spenser to call up on Hawk for help than not.
The selfsufficient, independent operator develops a real dependence, It's a real boon for the reader, for as fun as Spenser's interior monologues are, having him banter with Hawk becomes a reliable highlight.
There might be other, earlier, writers who've had a relationship like this, but I'm not aware of them and would like to be.
In Spenser and Hawk, we get the template that Elvis Cole and Joe Pike follow, or Patrick Kenzie/Angie Gennaro and Bubba Rugowski, or Walt Longmire and Henry Standing Bear, or Joe Pickett and Nate Romanowski, among others.
The outsider, the friend/ally that the mostly lawful protagonist can rely on when there's a need for something outside the law,

From Promised Land, we know that Hawk and Spenser fought on the same card in their youth we know he's stylish I guess that he's respectful of Susan he's an enforcer, a legbreaker, for whoever is paying for him at the moment and he has some sort of code that reminds Spenser of his with significant differences in Spenser's mind, but not so much in Hawk's.


Here we learn a bit more, he can disappear into a crowd, despite his flashy clothes and is almost infallible when tailing someone.
Shortly after arriving in London, the two have some drinks while Spenser catches Hawk up on what's going on and notes:

He showed no sign that he drunk anything.
In fact in the time I'd known Hawk I'd never seen him show a sign of anything, He laughed easily and he was never off balance, But whatever went on inside stayed inside, Or maybe nothing went on inside, Hawk was as impassive and hard as an obsidian carving, Maybe that was what went on inside,

Later, when Spenser is in Boston to update Dixon, he leaves one member of Liberty with Hawk, as they use her as a source of information on the rest of the group.
When Susan asks if that's safe to do, Spenser replies:

“Hawk has no feelings,” I said, “But he has rules. If she fits one of his rules, hell treat her very well, If she doesnt, hell treat her any way the mood strikes him, ”

“Do you really think he has no feelings”

“I have never seen any, Hes as good as anyoneever saw at what he does, But he never seems happy or sad or frightened or elated, He never, in the twentysome years Ive known him, here and there, has shown any sign of love or compassion, Hes never been nervous. Hes never been mad. ”

“Is he as good as you” Susan was resting her chin on her folded hands and looking at me,

"He might be," I said, "He might be better. "

“He didnt kill you last year on Cape Cod when he was supposed to, He must have felt something then, ”

“I think he likes me, the way he likes wine, the way he doesnt like gin, He preferred me to the guy he was working for, He sees me as a version of himself, And, somewhere in there, killing me on the sayso of a guy like Powers was in violation of one of the rules, I dont know. I wouldnt have killed him either, ”

“Are you a version of him”

“I got feelings,” I said, “I love. ”

“Yes, you do,” Susan said,

Part of this conversation will repeat throughout the seriesis Hawk better than Spenser Are the two versions of each other this was touched upon already in Promised Land Does Hawk feel

Hawk will contend that the two of them are more similar than Spenser will admit, but in The Judas Goat and in countless other books, he will note that Spenser's abundance of rules helps him to deny that similarity, overcomplicates Spenser's life, and one day will get him killed.
There are times when Spenser agrees to all of that even the last, but those are the only terms upon which he can live his life, so that's how it's going to have to be.


Exciting, amusing, tense, and we get to delve for the first time into the character that's arguably Parker's greatest creation, The Judas Goat really has it all, If only so I had an excuse to read this one again, I'm so glad I started this little project this year, It will serve as a decent jumpingon point, for those who want one, and it's a great spot to return to for longterm fans.
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