“The Boxer and the Spy” by Robert Parker

I was given the opportunity to read an advanced copy of Robert B. Parker’s new young readers novel- “The Boxer and the Spy”. I thought it was a fun novel, and while not completely gripping, there were times when it was quite engaging.

I thought that some of the teen characters in the novel did not ring quite true at times (understandable, as he was a teenager during the ’50s), and that some of the plot complexity found in his adult novels was lost in the transition to more child-friendly books.

My advice to him would be to keep the plots just as complex and simply tone down some of the content because people my age reading a mystery novel will want a complex plot. That said, the novel still drew to a satisfying and enjoyable conclusion.

Thanks for this opportunity,

Thomas Gow