Word: paled
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...PALE KINGS AND PRINCES...
...dissenters' pleas are answered in Pale Kings and Princes, a wry and rowdy tale of a Massachusetts burg corrupted by drug money. The first-person narrative is a running comic diatribe against such targets as ignorant bartenders, hash-house cooking, thick-necked lawmen and macho, possessive Latin lovers. Most of the talk is badinage rather than wit, but it serves to deflate the pomp without completely devaluing the circumstance. Violence pervades the landscape, yet Parker always pauses to evoke compassion for the victims. And despite the ebullient entertainment, his purpose is as serious as ever: to remind readers that...
...grand jury to indict Donovan and the other defendants on charges of larceny and fraud in connection with a subway-tunnel deal. The next year, after a judge refused to dismiss the indictment, Donovan felt obliged to resign. Small wonder, then, that after his acquittal Donovan, rigid and pale, called out to Prosecutor Stephen Bookin, "Give me back my reputation...
...astute managerial sense has had much to do with her husband's success over the years -- owned quite a few; that there was no love affair; that the collector was a newsletter publisher named Leonard E.B. Andrews, who planned to reap ^ vast profits from selling reproductions of Helga's pale and sturdy torso; and that the whole thing had been cooked up among him, the Wyeths and the editors of Art & Antiques, a sort of cultural airline magazine mainly devoted to the breathless chronicling of market trends...
...Spenser-Hawk combination is not used as much in Pale Kings as in previous novels. Instead, Hawk winds up an extra gun when Spenser needs him near the end. But their time together is quality time, with Hawk using his best Kingfisher accent and trading quips with Spenser. What little interplay there is in the novel still works well...