Promised Land by Robert B. Parker
A pivotal moment in the history of the series and an artifact of the 1970s Published by Random House Audio. Read by Michael Prichard. Duration: 5 hours, 27 minutes. Unabridged. Over the years I've read all of the Spenser novels, but since I do not have a photographic memory I'm going back and listening to them as audiobooks during my commute. Promised Land is a pivotal moment in the series because this is the moment in which we meet Hawk - Spenser's erstwhile partner in anti-crime in so many books in the series. Hawk is in his full glory here - a bad man who kills, roughs people up and intimidates, but still lives by his own code that Spenser somehow senses and respects. It is also a pivotal moment because there is an incredible amount of conversational psychoanalysis throughout the book, a trait that most Spenser books feature (often to their detriment, in my opinion). Spenser's personality is discussed, male/female relationships, what it means to be a man o