Latest Update 5 September 2002 by Bob Ames

Publication Information

The above information is from the online catalog of the Minuteman Library Network , Amazon.com, and my own collection.---Bob

Cover Information

"For Joan: I too favor fire"  See the annotation below.

From the dust jacket of the hard cover edition:

Boston P.I. Sunny Randall returns to face a trio of multilayered cases, in a mesmerizing new novel from today's foremost writer of American crime fiction.

When Robert B. Parker set his sights on creating a female protagonist to lead his newest series, the response was overwhelming.  "Humane, shrewd, snappy, wonderfully diverting ... a gift," said The Washington Post.  "A first-rate piece of entertainment," praised Newsweek.  "A master of the genre at work, writing with uncanny skill," said the Chicago Sun-Times.

In Perish Twice, Sunny comes to the aid of three very different woman, with deadly consequences.  Hired by prominent feminist Mary Lou Goddard to protect her from a series of threatening phone calls and shadowy pursuers, Sunny must contend with Goddard's reluctance to reveal all she knows about the unwelcome attentions bestowed on her.  When a member of Goddard's staff is gunned down, it's called a case of mistaken identity.  And when the murder suspect is found to have eaten his own gun, two cases are settled, though neither to Sunny's older sister has discovered that her husband has taken up with another woman; and Sunny's best friend Julie, normally a rock of married-with-children stability, has embarked on an ill-advised affair with a singularly unsuitable man.

Assailed from all sides by people who need her, Sunny begins to look like the most grounded member of her circle.  The complex emotional terrain she must navigate on behalf of her sister and her best friend is difficult enough, but the murder investigations lead her to the Boston underworld, where her footing, despite backup from her close friend Spike and ex-husband, Richie, is treacherous at best.

Filled with sharply drawn characters, crackling dialogue, and spot-on psychological insight, this is Parker's most satisfying and resonant novel yet.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day 

Or to a Spenser novel.

• A Boston P.I.  who used to be with the police but quit because of the hierarchy. 
• A large friend who can intimidate people or kick butt as needed.
• A love interest who she couldn't imagine not being a part of her life.
• An outspoken lesbian hiring a bodyguard, who says "I don't enjoy jokes", and winds up firing said bodyguard.  It's a distaff version of Looking for Rachael Wallace.
• Other plot points as listed in the annotations. 

Round up the usual suspects 

Carry-overs from the Spenser universe

• Tony Marcus - Crime lord of the black community.  If you're a whore in Boston, you belong to him.
  • Junior - Tony's bodyguard.  He might not be as big as Delaware, but he's certainly bigger than Rhode Island.
  • Ty-Bop - Tony's shooter.  He boogies to the beat of his own drummer.
• Lee Farrell - Boston homicide detective.
• Captain Martin Quirk is mentioned.

Literary References, or "The Annotated Sleuthette"

Significance of the title and the dedication: Parker put the poem in the book and I've included it here.  It's Fire and Ice by Robert Frost:

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.  

The Parker's are fortunate to live with only fire.  Sunny has to deal with both.

• Chapter 2: "Nancy Drew." - I have a feeling we are going to be hearing this comparison for as long as the series lasts.  I explained it at length on the Family Honor page.  Follow this link.
• Chapter 5: "I don't enjoy jokes." - One of the first things Rachel Wallace told Spenser.  What is it about strong willed lesbians in Parker's universe?
• Chapter 6:  
  1. "Casablanca" - 40 Brattle St., Harvard Square, Cambridge.  See their web site www.casablancaharvardsq.com/home.htm
  2. "The Harvest" - 44 Brattle St.  See their web site at www.the-harvest.com/
  3. "A good woman is hard to find." - A take-off on the phrase "a good man is hard to find."  See Oft Quoted and Lyrics
• Chapter 7: "Dr. Ruth." - Dr. Ruth Karola Westheimer is America's foremost sex therapist. In addition to Dr. Ruth's Encyclopedia of Sex, she has written many other books on human sexuality, as well as being a well-known lecturer, radio and TV personality, and a professor at New York University.  You can visit her web site at http://webcenter.drruth.aol.com/DrRuth
• Chapter 8: "What's this 'we', paleface." - An old joke.  See Oft Quoted
• Chapter 10: "Beast with two backs." - From Othello by William Shakespeare, Act 1 scene 1.  Iago is telling Brabantio, Desdemona's father, what this black fellow is doing to his daughter, not mentioning that they have married:  "..I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs."  It's also found in the the opening pages of Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel (c. 1530) so obviously the phrase has been around for a while.   
• Chapter 16: "Is he cute?"  "And taken" - Lee Farrell was still playing the field last time we saw him.  And he was gay, but I guess that since his sexuality didn't matter to the plot Parker choose not to mention it.  
• Chapter 17:
  1. "since the Brady Bunch was on television." - That would be from 26 September 1969 to 30 August 1974.  A widow with three girls marries a widower with three boys and feather-weight comedy ensues.  Three short lived spin-offs (The Brady Bunch Hour, The Brady Brides, and The Bradys) can be safely ignored. 
  2. "Blue Ginger." - This restaurant in downtown Wellesley is owned by Ming Tsai, who hosts East Meets West on the Food Network.  You can visit his web site at www.ming.com/blueginger/blueginger.htm
• Chapter 19: 
  1. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." - To quote from my entry in Hush Money:

     The general feeling goes back a long time.

     • Theocritus, 3BC: "In the eyes of love that which is not beautiful often seems beautiful"
     • Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre (1847) "Most true is it that beauty is in the eye of the gazer."
     • Booth Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons (1918)"You mean beauty's in the eye of the beholder"
  2. "Nancy Drew." - Again.
• Chapter 22: 
  1. "A leatherette Barcalounger." - Leatherette: textured vinyl meant to simulate leather.  As convincing as wood-grained plastic and a low priced imitation of classier materials.  The Barcalounger company is still around and makes a very good line of recliners.  See what they have to offer at http://www.barcalounger.com/2001/lexington.html
  2.  "The suspended animation of a life interrupted." - I've had no luck with this phrase.  The Tarot card of "The Hanged Man" and the graven image of a tree stump on a tombstone signify a life interrupted or cut short.  The book Nicole Brown Simpson: The Private Diary of a Life Interrupted points in that direction but the movie "Girl, Interrupted" (plus many interesting links) leads me to believe that there is a source dealing with mental illness that has escaped me.  
  3. The hotel in Natick - I'm working up to that one.  Keep reading.
  4. "We never sleep."  - Motto of the Pinkerton detective agency.  See Oft Quoted.
• Chapter 23: 
  1. "A woman without a man is nowhere." - Sort of like a fish without a bicycle, eh?  Elizabeth sounds an awful lot like Patty Giacomin (Early Autumn, Pastime). 
  2. "Men are where the bucks are." - Yep, that's Patty.
• Chapter 24:
  1. "You're name wouldn't be Addams, would it?" - Referring to the characters in a large quantity of macabre cartoons drawn by Charles Addams for The New Yorker magazine.  They were the basis for the television show The Addams Family, 18 September 1964 to 4 September 1966.  
  2. "Filed under Zbigniew." - A common Polish name.  
  3. "The motel I was after was done up like a Normal castle." - Just a little longer.
  4. "Why drive out to Natick and check into a hotel?" - We're almost there.
  5. "Since I was slouching toward a distant M.B.A." - A reference to Michael Robartes and the Dancer by William Butler Yeats; a section called The Second Coming:

     "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
     Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"  See Poetry

• Chapter 25: 
  1. "The Locksley Hall in Natick." - Okay, now we're on my turf so listen up.  There's an area in Natick where a developer bought a large parcel of land and put up a bunch of nice middle class houses, somewhere around 1960 I'd guess by the looks.  To give you an idea of the theme some of the new roads were named Nottingham Drive, Greenwood Road, Robin Hood Road, and Sherwood Road.  On the nearby highway, Route 9, a strip mall called Sherwood Plaza was built anchored by a now bankrupt downscale department store called Zayres . The town was still pretty rural back then and the only places to spend the night were some small motels and a tiny place with a few cabins. 

     A few decades later civilization had progressed to the point where people doing business in Boston would consider a hotel 18 miles to the east as convenient and the chain hotels moved in.  Wouldn't it be logical to call one "Locksley Hall," the ancestral home of Robin of Locksley, AKA Robin Hood?

     Sadly, it was not to be.  Ironically, considering Robin's choice of lifestyle, the hotel next to the Sherwood Plaza is the Crowne Plaza, and it looks pretty much like a boxy hotel.  

     

     In this invention Parker was, nonetheless, showing a surprising familiarity with my neck of the suburbs. The "Norman castle" looking place he is referring to is about five miles further east on Route 9 and is the Sheraton Framingham.  I found this picture on their web site:

     

     The style is more Tudor rather than Norman but I'll grant the artistic license.  And to round out this entry I'll note that for some bizarre reason this place was originally called the Sheraton Tara.  Scarlett O'Hara would not likely have approved.

  2. "Maybe she'd snarl, You can't handle the truth." - Which is what Jack Nicholson (Col. Jessup) did to Tom Cruise (Lt. Kaffee) in the 1992 movie A Few Good Men.
  3. "Freud said that love and work are what matter most to people." - I'm sure he did, but I'm not going to read enough of his mostly outdated theories to look for it.
• Chapter 26: "That thought calls all in doubt." - A paraphrase from An Anatomy of the World: The First Anniversary by John Donne, 1611. "A new philosophy calls all in doubt." 
• Chapter 27: "Nothing in the house that suggested a life lived with exhilaration." - Sounds like he borrowed it, doesn't it?  I couldn't find it.
• Chapter 29: "And the music goes round and round." - Tommy Dorsey had a number 1 hit with this song in 1936.  See Lyrics
• Chapter 30: "Spuds MacKenzie." - See the party animal in Oft Quoted
• Chapter 32: "Promoted to the level of his incompetence." - In The Peter Principle, a 1969 book by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Rayman Hull, it is explained that this will happen in any hierarchical organization.
• Chapter 33: "Home is where when you have to go there, they have to take you in." - From the poem The Death of the Hired Hand by Robert Frost. It's too long to include on the poetry page but you can find it at http://www.bartleby.com/118/3.html
• Chapter 34:
  1. "They were waiting for Godot." - A "tragicomedy in 2 acts" by Samuel Beckett. Originally written in French in 1959, it points out the absurdity of mankind's existence and the hope for salvation, which never seems to come.  Or something like that; I'm not qualified to capsulize this play.
  2. "The candy man can." - The Candy Man is a song from the delightful movie Willie Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (1971) starring Gene Wilder.  Screenplay by Roald Dahl and David Seltzer based on Dahl's book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  See Lyrics

     Television junkies may recall "Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected" but how many of you are old enough to remember his short-lived 1961 series called "Way Out"?  It followed The Twilight Zone and the writing was even better.  I found an article on it at http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue08/features/wayout/article.htm 

• Chapter 36: 
  1. "254-2256" - Jermaine's beeper number is a refreshing change of pace from the "555" exchange that screams "fake."  Since we are talking Boston the area code is 617.  To satisfy my curiosity and save the rest of you from incurring long distance charges to check it out I dialed 617-254-2256.  It's the 24 hour telephone banking system of the Cambridge Trust Co.  
  2. "Neither rain nor snow nor dark of night." - Is not the official motto of the United States Postal Service.  They don't have one.  This was a description of the Persian postal service circa 500 BC which was inscribed on the General Post Office in New York City.  See a fuller description here: http://www.infoplease.com/askeds/7-25-00askeds.html 
• Chapter 38: "Battening on huge sea worms." - From The Kraken by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, from the book Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, 1830.  See Poetry  
• Chapter 44: "Day at a time." - Alcoholics Anonymous stresses that sobriety is best taken one day at a time, and this phrase can be a source of strength. 
• Chapter 45: 
  1. "What a tangled web we weave." - It's from Marmion: A tale of Flodden Field canto 6, stanza 17, by Sir Walter Scott:

     "O, what a tangled web we weave, 
     When first we practice to deceive! 
     A Palmer too! - no wonder why 
     I felt rebuked beneath his eye: 
     I might have known there was but one, 
     Whose look could quell Lord Marmion."

  I  have not found a copy online but  J.R. Pope answered with A Word of Encouragement:

  "Oh, what a tangled web we weave 
  When first we practice to deceive 
  But when we've practiced for a while 
  How vastly we improve our style!"

• Chapter 47: "The best revenge is living well." - An adage, origin unknown.
• Chapter 49: "Direct your feet to the sunny side of the street." - Taken from the song On the Sunny Side of the Street, words by Dorothy Fields, music by Jimmy McHugh.  See Lyrics 
• Chapter 54: "Ty-bop...jittered to the beat of a different drummer." - See Oft Quoted
• Chapter 57: "Pygmalion." - Simone answered this one in Small Vices:

  "He is - in Greek mythology - a sculptor who fell in love with a statue of a woman he made. George Bernard Shaw wrote a play with the name Pygmalion and the musical My Fair Lady is about the very theme, about a professor who created the perfect woman."

  Yep, the musical (1956) is based on Shaw's play (1914.)  Note that a common theme was a hatred of women until an ideal could be created or transformed. 

• Chapter 57: "Ambivalence writ large." - **

Meanwhile, in the Sleuthette Universe

The fact that her ex-husband is the next generation of a family that controls the Irish crime in Boston is an interesting touch but this is two books in a row where Sunny's bacon is pulled out of the fire by the mob.  This could become annoying real fast. 

Notes

The Sleuthette reference above is from Richie in Family Honor ch. 7  

"The sleuthette business is going okay?"
"Sleuthette?"
"You find something patronizing in that?" Richie said.
"Of course not," I said." Any woman loves diminutives."
"Lucky for me," he said.
"Yes," I said. "I remember."

Oops: Michael Frasier found the following error:

I've read Perish Twice a number of times, mostly just the first few chapters, and I can't figure out how Sunny knew that Nancy Simpson's first name was Nancy. I mean I know she's a great detective and all, but. . .

The last page of Chapter 2, page 8 reads:

The sign on the mailbox said Simpson. I rang the bell. After maybe two minutes, which is a long time if you're waiting at a front door, a woman opened the door wearing jeans and a white shirt. The tails of the shirt were hanging out. She was barefoot and without makeup. Her hair looked as if an attempt had been made at it, but not an extended one.
"Are you Nancy Simpson?" I asked.

Now, the obvious answer would be that the mailbox didn't say Simpson, it said
Nancy Simpson, but 1) I think Sunny would have said the mailbox said Nancy
Simpson if that's what the mailbox said and 2) I don't believe I've seen too
many mailboxes (if any) that have the resident's first name on it.

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