Melancholy Baby (Sunny Randall Series #4) by Robert B. Parker

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
Robert B. Parker never fails to deliver highly charged plots and engaging characters in all of his bestselling mystery series. This fourth novel featuring bright, beautiful Boston P.I. Sunny Randall is another complex, captivating conundrum.

Contentious college student Sarah Markham has hired Sunny to delve into her family background, a task that proves daunting for the feisty detective, who soon finds that facts about Sarah's parents are surprisingly difficult and dangerous to pin down. Meanwhile, Sunny's life is complicated by the fact that she's facing a genuine personal crisis of her own. As her ex-husband -- a man she loved but couldn't live with -- makes plans to remarry, she can no longer deny her disastrously mixed feelings about relationships. But, even as she decides to confront her own chaotic emotions through therapy and personal experimentation, the passionate P.I. puts her life on the line to answer troubled Sarah's questions about where and how family and identity intersect…and who is willing to kill to conceal the truth. Sue Stone

From the Publisher

When Sunny Randall helps a young woman locate her birth parents, she uncovers the dark truth about her own past.

Publishers Weekly

The title refers to two characters: Boston college student Sarah Markham, convinced that her parents adopted her, and Boston PI Sunny Randall, hired by Sarah to certify her parentage. Sarah is melancholy because her parents refuse to take a DNA test to settle the issue and seem furtive; Sunny, because her ex-husband, Richie, has just remarried. In this excellent fourth Sunny Randall PI tale (after Shrink Rap), Sarah's sadness leads to murder, as Sunny's questioning of the parents results in one of their deaths at the hands of the person who would suffer most if the truth comes out. Sunny's own blues lead her to Dr. Susan Silverman and sessions on the couch that, however well observed, will have fans of Parker's PI Spenser who are terminally tired of Susan (Spenser's longtime girlfriend) gritting their teeth at her intrusion into another series. Still, Sunny's own regulars, particularly tough gay pal Spike, hold their own in the tale. There's little here that Parker hasn't done before, like his protagonist's side trip to New York and her tangling with venal lawyers and reptilian celebrities as well as Parker's sensitive exploration of the meaning of family and maturity and of the tension between self-reliance and love for another, but he does it so well here, with his impeccable prose and charismatic heroine, that fans will tremble with delight. Agent, Helen Brann. (Sept. 27) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Boston P.I. Sunny Randall is unhappy to learn that the ex-husband she still loves is getting married to someone else. Her life seemingly a mess, Sunny seeks the help of psychiatrist Susan Silverman. In between sessions that probe her relationship with her insufferable mother and beloved father, Sunny works on the case of Sarah Markham, a distraught 21-year-old woman who wants to track down her biological parents. The only trouble is that the couple who raised her claim she's theirs but refuse to take a DNA test to prove it. Sunny soon learns that Sarah's parents have lied about their past. The deeper she delves into their lives and her own mind, the more dangerous her situation becomes. But when things get too rough, she has her bull terrier Rosie to ground her and her gay friend Spike to defend her. In his fourth Sunny Randall novel (after Shrink Rap), Grand Master Parker, as always, leavens his story with sly wit while relying on dialog to advance the plot and develop character. Recommended for all popular fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/04.] Ronnie H. Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Interviews & Essays

Table of Contents

Interviews & Essays

Ransom Notes: One of the most obvious differences between your Sunny Randall books and your two other bestselling series is the fact that you're working with a female point-of-view character. Is there anything that you find particularly challenging about that?

Robert B. Parker: Sunny Randall was originally invented for Helen Hunt to play, so I had little choice about writing her with a female point-of-view. I am fortunate to be married to the best-looking, smartest, and toughest female person in the world, and that's been very useful to me in this series. Joan can offer easy corrections ("It's not called rouge anymore, Bob") and also keep me on track with more difficult things -- like what women think and feel when they look at men, how they feel when men look at them, etc. I'm not sure I would have undertaken Sunny if I hadn't had Joan available.

RN: Is there anything different about the types of cases you choose for Sunny to investigate, as opposed to those for her fellow P.I. Spenser and/or police officer Jesse Stone?

RBP: Not really, though Sunny is less likely to use direct muscle. Of course, we have her fierce friend Spike on tap for that.

RN: Is that why Sunny refers to both guns and Spike as "equalizers" and mentions that with guns matters are pretty much black-and-white, while people can be modulated -- that is, are more flexible?

RBP: Sunny recognizes that there are times when guns are decisive. But I think it is in keeping with her femaleness that she be interested in how best to achieve results through human interaction as well. I don't see such interest in human interaction as exclusive, among my characters, to Sunny, or even as exclusively a female trait. But it does certainly suit Sunny.

RN: Sunny has said she left the police in part so she could focus her efforts only on cases she cared about. How does that compare to the way she sees her artistic talents?

RBP: James Dickey once said that poetry allowed him to live life on his own terms. That is also Sunny's goal in both her work and art.

RN: Family issues are central in the case Sunny is working on in Melancholy Baby and in the elements that focus on her personal life (coming to terms with her feelings about her beloved ex-husband's marriage to another woman). What made you decide to explore both Sunny and her client Sarah's alienation from their families in Melancholy Baby?

RBP: I think each aspect of familial circumstances resonates with the other. I was aware of it and was hoping for that resonance.

RN: In several of your books you've had lawyers as bad guys -- bending and/or breaking the law. What do you think this element adds to your mysteries?

RBP: Some lawyers are better than others (Rita Flore, for instance). I figure if you write books about broken laws, you're going to need some lawyers who help break them.

RN: Can you tell us anything about your future writing plans?

RBP: I plan to publish a Spenser novel every spring, and alternate Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall each fall. There will also be a very good western novel out sometime next spring or summer [2005].