A Robert B. Parker double play: 30th Spenser and historical novel

Parker surrounds Robinson with some of the people and controversies he was in fact surrounded with; we also see him through his interactions with a fictional character named Jeremiah Burke, a survivor of Guadalcanal, a burned-out case. His physical wounds have gradually healed; he has created his own mental scar tissue to protect himself from the psychological wounds. His wife has left him, and he cares about nothing. He becomes an enforcer in the underworld without becoming an underworld figure, and later a bodyguard to a spoiled heiress. Finally he is hired by the Brooklyn Dodgers to protect Robinson, who moves through an atmosphere of constant threat. Some of the threats emanate from people in Burke's past.

Parker twines four strands through his story. One is the achievements and character of the historical Robinson, who provides the moral center by which everything is judged. Some of the pages about Robinson make uncomfortable reading, because it is hardly possible to re-create the complacently racist attitudes of his time without causing offense; Parker may go too far with jocularity about watermelon and fried chicken. Then there is the back story of Burke, which is printed on a different, gray-tinted paper, followed by the salvation of Burke, who thinks he is saving Robinson. Finally there are the bittersweet memories of a figure completely outside the main story, named Bobby, who turns 16 during Robinson's first season and whose experiences and reflections, printed in italics, are clearly those of Parker himself. He and his friends confront racial attitudes by fantasizing about having sex with Lena Horne. "Whether Lena Horne would have wanted sex with any of us was never considered."