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Robert B. Parker's newest fictional creation, Sunny Randall, is hired to act as a bodyguard and driver for famous romance writer Melanie Joan Hall during a book signing tour. Hall is being stalked by her ex-husband, a psychoanalyst with a dangerous bedside manner, but she refuses to divulge the reason for her fears. The menacing doctor's appearance at each and every signing is turning Ms. Hall into a hysterical wreck, even when surrounded by doting fans and with Sunny close at hand.
In order to uncover Dr. Melvin's dark side, Sunny becomes a patient. Even as she grows more and more suspicious of the doctor's professional ethics, she finds herself reluctantly exploring her own inner demons on the manipulative shrink's couch.
The story moves from the East coast tour to a Hollywood pitch session to sell the book. As one of the all-time best-selling Masters of Mystery, Parker's intimate knowledge of the publishing and moviemaking world lends moments of humor to a skillfully plotted mystery.
Sunny's creation begs the question: did Parker's star detective Spenser and his willowy girlfriend Susan Silverman have a love child? If they didn't, then Sunny Randall could pass for a close relative. As snappy and sharp as Spenser in his springier years, Sunny, daughter of a retired Boston cop who wore a badge herself for a while, hunts down the bad guys with the same wit, elan, and streetwise craft of one of the most famous private eyes in the world. She comes complete with funny dog and burly sidekick, but from a distinctly female point of view. Given Parker's proclivity for macho detectives and sidekicks, his ability to switch to the female point of view and voice is to be admired.
Dog lovers will fall for Rosie, the miniature English bull terrier seen as beautiful by Sunny and her ex-husband Brian, who share custody. Others are not so sure:
"A state police detective named Meyer came to call on me. I offered coffee, he accepted, and we drank it at my dining nook in the bay window of my loft. Rosie joined us.
'What the hell is that?' Meyer said.
'That's Rosie,' I said.
'Did you trap her?'
'Of course not.
'I got possums in my grape arbor,' Meyer said. 'She looks like one of those.'"
If Parker weren't such a skilled writer, you might be tempted to call Sunny derivative, as the pages fairly sizzle with action and Parker's trademark illuminating and entertaining dialogue unfold. As Sunny plumbs her psyche, it is there that you see that her resemblance to Spenser lies primarily in her Boston locale.
In this page turner, the third in a series, SHRINK RAP fleshes out Sunny Randall's already interesting character, first established in PERISH TWICE and FAMILY HONOR. Sunny was created as a character for development in collaboration with Parker's good friend, actress Helen Hunt, but there are no blips to date on the usual radar screens for movie or TV. The scenes in the Hollywood pitch sessions give colorful insights into what can happen to a book-to-movie. Is this a clue?
--- Reviewed by Roz Shea
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