All Our Yesterdays

"All Our Yesterdays" by Robert B. Parker. 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... From the Paperback edition.From Publishers WeeklySpenser 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. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalWith the spare, conversational style characteristic of his popular Spenser mysteries, Parker portrays the intertwined lives of two Boston families, the Sheridans and Winslows, who love and destroy each other through three generations. Conn Sheridan, betrayed by his lover in Dublin during the ''troubles,'' comes to America and joins the Boston police force. Graft, protection, and other cover-ups are accepted as natural, and Conn has a dangerous affair with Hadley Winslow, a Boston tycoon's wife. Chris Sheridan, the grandson to Conn and now a special prosecutor, attempts to unravel the web of deceit begun by his grandfather decades before. In this rough world, the women are either promiscuous or incapable of love-making, except for Grace, whom young Chris hopes to marry. Like Spencer's Susan, Grace has wit and a charming reserve. Spenser fans as well as newcomers will enjoy Parker's brick-by-brick famil-iarity with Boston. For most popular collections.--Elsa Pendleton, Boeing Computer Support Svcs., Ridgecrest, Cal.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. Book details: published 1994. Order now on BookShops.in with fast, reliable delivery across India.