All Our Yesterdays - ISBNLookup.com

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Spenser doesn't appear in this overwrought, Boston-set saga of three generations of Irish-American cops, but the spirit of Parker's popular PI dominates these pages nonetheless, with each cop in turn obsessed with courage, codes of behavior and, especially, A Woman. These are the themes of Parker's other non-Spenser novels as well, particularly Love and Glory, but here they're explored in a tale whose scaffolding of parallels and coincidences suspends disbelief as poorly as do the characters' operatic passions. The Sheridan patriarch, Conn, for example, having been betrayed in Ireland during ``the troubles'' by the love of his life, one Hadley Winslow, moves to the U.S. with a heart of stone: ``It was so hard to stop caring about her,'' he tells a fellow cop, ``that I had to stop caring about everything.'' That is, until Conn catches the case of a young girl found slain and molested, discovers that Hadley's son is the culprit and uses that information to blackmail Hadley into a longterm sexual liaison in exchange for burying the proof against her son. If ever a set of characters needed Prozac it's these Sheridans, whose sullen, brutal, unlikely dance with the Winslow women continues until the third-generation Sheridan, with help from his father, breaks the spell after a paroxysm of violence. All this pained macho posturing is shaped by Parker's usual elegant and precise prose, perhaps the cleanest in crimedom; but, finally no turn of phrase is quick enough to keep his somber tale from sinking into fatal self-importance. BOMC and QPB selections; major ad/promo. (Nov.)

Library Journal

Parker is best known for his mystery series featuring that lovable cynic, Spenser. Here, he breaks new ground with a multigenerational saga about Irish cops.

Emily Melton

Can Parker write mainstream fiction as well as he writes the extraordinarily popular Spenser mysteries? Well, not quite. His first non-Spenser attempt in years is a multigenerational saga that spans 1920s Ireland to 1990s Boston. It's the tale of three men, Conn, Gus, and Chris Sheridan, whose lives are shadowed by IRA captain Conn's love-affair-gone-wrong with American Hadley Winslow during the Irish "troubles" of the 1920s. A terrible legacy of revenge, blackmail, deceit, and anger is passed on to Conn's son, Gus, a Boston cop, and to Gus' son, Chris, a Harvard criminology professor. Unfortunately, Parker's gift for spare, witty repartee, which works so well in the Spenser series, mostly falls flat here, and the observations about life, love, and the ways of the world that sound so genuine coming from Spenser seem oddly out of context when uttered by Conn, Gus, and Chris. Parker also seems uncomfortable with the "historical" early chapters, which are marred by uneven pacing. But despite the book's flaws, the surprise-a-minute plot is Parker at his best, and readers will find themselves quite taken with the three main characters: charismatic, tragically flawed Conn; sad, strong, victim-of-life Gus; and energetic, break-out-of-the-mold Chris. Whether critics and reviewers love this book or hate it, it will be in high demand the minute it's published.

From Barnes & Noble

The author of the Spenser novels presents a sprawling family saga of cops, heroes, fathers, sons, and lovers, that spans the whole turbulent 20th century and ranges across two continents, from revolutionary Ireland to the parlors and backstreets of Boston.