BAD BUSINESS

God’s gift to the Boston crime scene follows an errant husband into a world of corporate malfeasance.

Convinced that her husband is straying on a nightly basis, starchy Marlene Rowley hires Spenser to get the goods on him. Hardly has the hired knight-errant begun his surveillance of Trent Rowley when he notices that somebody’s following Marlene. And soon after satisfying himself that Trent has been dallying with Ellen Eisen, Spenser realizes that she’s being followed as well. Why the sudden interest in the Rowleys’ domestic entanglements? It’s too late to ask Trent Rowley, because he’s been shot to death by somebody who had no trouble breaching the security at Kinergy, the Enron-like energy-trading octopus where he toiled alongside his mistress and her husband. So Spenser settles for being a charming nuisance to the surviving suspects—though, as he aptly notes, his witticisms “mostly . . . amused myself”—hoping to shake loose some revelation that will link the Rowleys’ swinging sex life to the spreading stain of corruption readers are learning to associate with energy-trading firms. Eventually he does, with a little help from his loyal sidekicks Hawk and Susan Richman, though it’s never entirely clear just how he comes by his climactic brainwave.

Parker thickens the plot with a master’s patience, producing some satisfyingly unexpected twists, even though, in accord with his recent manner (Back Story, 2003, etc.), he’s a lot less careful about wrapping it all up.