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Jan 2, 1994 · Spenser: Pale Kings and Princes. When one of Susan's former patients, a news reporter, turns up dead on the outskirts of Wheaton, the cocaine capitol of Massachusetts, she and Spenser head out to Wheaton to find out why he was killed, with Hawk tagging along, and end up getting involved with Felipe Esteva, the h... Read all.
- (191)
- Crime, Drama
- Vic Sarin
- 1994-01-02
Pale Kings and Princes is a Spenser novel by Robert B. Parker. The title is taken from John Keats 's poem La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad. Following the murder of a reporter, Spenser is hired by a newspaper to investigate drug smuggling around the area of Wheaton, Massachusetts.
- Robert B. Parker
- 1987
- Cover Information
- Recurring Characters
- Unanswered Questions
- Literary References, or "The Annotated Gumshoe"
- Meanwhile, in the Spenser Universe
- Favorite Lines
- Food
- Drink
- Notes
"as always for Joan, and Dan, and Dave, and this time too, for Kathy"
"A reporter who was prying into the cocaine trade the the central Massachusetts town of Wheaton has been murdered, and Spenser is called in to investigate. When he's rebuffed by the police and threatened by a Colombian produce dealer who may be the cocaine kingpin, it's apparent that Wheaton isn't just another small town, but a major center for the cocaine trade in the Northeast.
As Spenser digs deeper for evidence, he meets three women on whom the case seems to turn: Emmy Esteva, the wife of the reputed cocaine kingpin; Juanita Olmos, a young woman who'd been involved with the murdered reporter; and Caroline Rogers, the wife of the Wheaton Police Chief.
After another murder is committed and an attempt is made on Spenser's life, he turns for help to Hawk, whose special skills keep them all alive, and to Susan, whose psychological insights are more and more necessary as the chase moves away from cocaine and appears to hinge more on older and more basic problems - jealousy, passion, and hate.
Pale Kings and Princes, the fourteenth Spenser novel, takes us into the cutthroat, multibillion-dollar cocaine business, where drugs are valued above all and human life is frighteningly dispensable"
"A young hotshot reporter was dead. He had gone to take a look-see at 'Miami North'--little Wheaton, Massachusetts--the biggest cocaine distribution center above the Mason/Dixon line.
•Susan is a valuable asset in this case, offering psychological counseling to a woman who loses her husband and son to the Wheaton drug lords.
•Hawk does some bodyguard duty for Spenser.
•Rita Fiore (cf. Valediction) provides some information on the drug trade before Spenser goes into Wheaton.
•Detective Samuelson, LAPD (cf. A Savage Place) is briefly mentioned.
•Henry Cimoli doesn't mind that Spenser is storing 200 kilos of cocaine in the basement of the Harbor Health Club.
•Lieutenant Healy tells Trooper Lundquist that Spenser may be able to help the investigation.
•Did Spenser actually kill the Rottweiler? Or did he just stun him? Idle prying minds want to know. (Jacob Sconyers writes: "My opinion: have you every felt the dense skull and heavily muscled neck of an adult Rottweiler? That dog ain't dead, he's just restin' a spell." The American Humane Association will be glad to know that no fictional animals ...
Significance of the Title: "I saw pale kings and princes too, / Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; / Who cried--'La belle Dame sans Merci / Hath thee in thrall'" - John Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci [1821]. I'm not sure of the reference here. The poem itself: "La Belle Dame sans Merci" (French: "The Beautiful Merciless Lady"), is about a young man pining away for love of an elf-maiden.
However, Peter Nover writes: "The title of Pale Kings and Princes: Parker's novel is an exploration and expansion of the themes that are to be found in Keats' poem. For a very fine article on the multiple layers of meaning that Keats' poem offers for an interpretation of RBP's novel, see: D.M. Bakker, "In Thrall to 'La Belle Dame sans Merci: In Pale Kings and Princes, Robert B. Parker struggles to reconcile a poetic sensibility with harsh reality", The Armchair Detective 25 (3) (Summer 1992), 296-300. Ms Bakker writes: "[...] we must now consider in more detail what 'la belle dame' or 'the fair lady' represents. In the novel, as in the poem, the 'fair' lady takes on many guises. In Keats' poem, she is, on one level the faerie creature who ensnares the knight. Similarily, in Pale Kings and Princes, cocaine might be seen as such a faerie creature. Cocaine [...] is the mistress of Wheaton. It is the 'White Lady' and 'Snow Queen' to whom all pay homage. [...] [T]he pale kings and princes of the knight's dream are, in Parker's novel, the kingpins of Wheaton's cocaine trade. The lines, 'I saw pale kings and princes, too/Pale warriors, death pale were they all,' aptly describe Wheaton's cocaine merchants. Their pale visages remind us of the pale powder or 'snow' they sell; Parker's use of 'snow' as a euphemism for cocaine, and the 'snowmen' to refer to the dealers, serves to remind us of the coldness of Keats' lonely hillside - his allusion to death"."
Chapter 1:
•"The sun that brief December day shone weakly through the west-facing window of Garrett Kingsley's office." - Peggy Morgan wrote in to note: "This is from James Greenleaf Whittier's 'Snowbound.' The first two lines of the poem are: 'The sun that brief December day/Rose cheerless over hills of gray.'" (Yes indeed. At 758 lines it's too long for my Poetry page but you can read it at http://www.darsie.net/library/whittier_snowbound.html)
•"Kingsley took a corncob pipe from one of his vest pockets and a pouch of Cherry Blend...lit the pipe with a kitchen match...that he scratched into flame with his thumbnail. I shall return." - Contributor Frank G. Wilkes submitted that cut-down version and kindly pointed out that I had once again overlooked the obvious:
"This is a reference to General Douglas McArthur who smoked a corncob pipe and said, when he left the Philippines, 'I shall return.'"
•Spenser's on an American beer binge, as evidenced by this book's "Broo List":
•Chapter 2: Killian's Red Ale in the bar at the Parker House. Sure, it's an Irish red, but it's brewed by Coors, so there.
•Chapter 4: Draft beer, at the bar at the Reservoir Court in Wheaton. Ho hum.
•Chapter 5: Sam Adams, in Spenser's room at the Reservoir Court. Now that's good drinking!
•Chapter 8: Budweiser long-neck, in a Spanish saloon in the Colombian part of Wheaton. Not what I'd call gourmet beer, but as Spenser says: "The worst beer I ever had was wonderful." You takes what you can get, I guess...
•Susan shows that she can be very necessary at times. Spenser slips up a couple of times, and people die because of it. Susan is there to comfort and bolster Spenser's confidence, which is in sore need of a boost after the murders.
Chapter 2:
"'Could we focus on Wheaton a little more,' I said.
'Focus,' Rita said, 'they don't even know us.'"
Chapter 3:
'Listen...Spenser. You start asking around in that neighborhood and you'll end up with your balls missing too.'
'League of Women Voters would sponsor a day of mourning,' I said."
•Chapter 5: Tuna salad and a dab of cole slaw on whole wheat in his hotel room. Also some bread and butter pickles ("green vegetables are important").
•Chapter 8: A grilled cheese sandwich at Wally's Lunch.
•Chapter 9: A gourmet Italian meal that got burned up along with his car. One turkey and one veggie submarine sandwich from the Quabin Sub Base. Sounds better than what he had to settle for.
•Chapter 10: Chicken pot pie at the Reservoir Hunt Room.
•Chapter 11: English muffin at Friendly's.
•Chapter 17: Tuna on pumpernickel, turkey on whole wheat with lettuce and mayo in the car.
•Chapter 2: Killian Red Ale downstairs at the Parker House.
•Chapter 4: Draft beer at the Reservoir Court.
•Chapter 5: Samuel Adams in his hotel room.
•Chapter 8: An "authentic native Budweiser" long neck at a bar in the Hispanic part of town.
•Chapter 10: Beer with dinner in the Reservoir Hunt Room.
•Chapter 11: Sam Adams in the hotel bar.
•Note Susan's psychotherapy session with Caroline Rogers in Chapter 31. "Let the tears come. See what comes with them." We'll be seeing that phrase again. One wonders if it's a standard method in psychotherapy. Just a thought...
•If you're a local like me the Simon and Schuster audio cassettes read by David Purdham can be pure torture. The oft-mentioned Quabbin Reservoir is pronounced with a soft A, sorta like "Quaahbin." While driving to work I found myself shouting at the tape player "It's not 'Quaybin' you moron." If it were not a library copy I'd have hit it with a hammer. I have not yet been able to track down the Books On Tape version to see whether Michael Prichard got it right.
•As I was pulling into my parking slot Hawk was driving on the Mass. Turnpike past Worcester, and it was pronounced "Wooster," just like a P.G. Wodehouse character. I wanted to cry.
•I was clueless as to where RBP sited this book until I found an angel. I wrote to Linda Shea (see the Links page) and she E-mailed me that: "Yes we definitely went to Ware on purpose to hunt down 'Wheaton' and drove down its streets - everything he mentioned was exactly there as he said it was. It was pretty neat."
BTW: As I noted in God Save the Child, where Lynnfield became Smithfield, in the normal books he can get away with calling the towns what they are, but in this one the police chief turned out to be involved in corruption and murder. For legal reasons and to make very clear that this was a work of fiction he had to change the name.
•The Chicama winery was on Martha's Vineyard, an island just off the coast which you can visit by taking the ferry from Wood's Hole to Vineyard Haven. (The original Bullets and Beer site had a link to the website, but the winery closed in 2008.)
Pale Kings and Princes (Spenser, No 14) Stewart Frazier. 9 subscribers. Subscribed.
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- Stewart Frazier
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Spenser: Pale Kings and Princes (1994 TV Movie) User Reviews. Review this title. 4 Reviews. Hide Spoilers. Sort by: Filter by Rating: The best of the "Lifetime" Spenser Movies. Leviathan0999 1 May 2003. This is a remarkably faithful adaptation of Robert B. Parker's novel.
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Brief Synopsis. In a revival of the television series "Spenser: For Hire," Spenser teams up with his longtime girlfriend, psychologist Susan, and friend Hawk, to unravel a web of murder, drugs and deceit surrounding a small New England town.
