All Our Yesterdays
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
They were the Sheridan men, ruled by passion, betrayed by love, heirs to a legacy of violence and forbidden desire. Gus, Boston's top homicide cop: he knew equally well the backroom politics of City Hall and the private passions of the very rich, a man haunted by the wanton courage and perilous obsessions he inherited from his father... Conn, the patriarch, a lawless cop who spawned a circle of vengeance and betrayal that would span half a century... and Chris, Gus's beloved son, a Harvard lawyer and criminologist, fated to risk everything to break the chain of obsession and rage... Three generations linked by crime and punishment--cops and heroes, fathers, sons, and lovers united at last by revelations that could bring a family to its knees...
PUBLISHERS 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.
Customer Reviews
All our Yesterdays
I have read every one of Robert Parker’s books (novels?), or so I thought. All have been read twice and many have been read numerous times. What an absolute treat it has been. However, All our Yesterdays has truly caused me many sleepless nights as I would read until the book had slapped me in the face several times. What an intelligent, gripping and heartwarming story stretching through the generations of two families with all their secrets and tragedies. I consider it the absolute best of his works. I regret that I didn’t read it until after his passing as I would have loved to have one of his many readers to let him know how I felt as I read through tears and smiles. And so.......Joan, this is for you!
All Our Yesterdays
Not very Parkeresque. Hard to read/follow.