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The Godwulf Manuscript (The Spenser Series Book 1) Kindle Edition

by Robert B. Parker (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 6,383 ratings
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New York Times bestselling author of the Spenser series of crime thrillers—Book 1 in the series

“The toughest, funniest, wisest, private eye in the field these days.”—Houston Chronicle

Spenser earned his degree in the school of hard knocks, so he is ready when a Boston university hires him to recover a rare, stolen manuscript. He is hardly surpised that his only clue is a radical student with four bullets in his chest.

The cops are ready to throw the book at the pretty blond coed whose prints are all over the murder weapon but Spenser knows there are no easy answers. He tackles some very heavy homework and knows that if he doesn't finish his assignment soon, he could end up marked “D”—for dead.
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  1. Book 1 of 52
    Spenser
  2. Print length
    210 pages
  3. Language
    English
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    Dell
  6. Publication date
    September 30, 2009
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Robert B. Parker was the author of seventy books, including the legendary Spenser detective series, novels featuring Chief Jesse Stone, and the acclaimed Virgil Cole/Everett Hitch westerns, as well as the Sunny Randall novels. Winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award and long considered the undisputed dean of American crime fiction, Parker died in January 2010.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1
 
The office of the university president looked like the front parlor of a successful Victorian whorehouse. It was paneled in big squares of dark walnut, with ornately figured maroon drapes at the long windows. There was maroon carpeting and the furniture was black leather with brass studs. The office was much nicer than the classrooms; maybe I should have worn a tie.
 
Bradford W. Forbes, the president, was prosperously heavy—reddish face; thick, longish, white hair; heavy white eyebrows. He was wearing a brown pin-striped custom-tailored three-piece suit with a gold Phi Beta Kappa key on a gold watch chain stretched across his successful middle. His shirt was yellow broadcloth and his blue and yellow striped red tie spilled out over the top of his vest.
 
As he talked, Forbes swiveled his chair around and stared at his reflection in the window. Flakes of the season’s first snow flattened out against it, dissolved and trickled down onto the white brick sill. It was very gray out, a November grayness that is peculiar to Boston in late fall, and Forbes’s office seemed cheerier than it should have because of that.
 
He was telling me about the sensitive nature of a college president’s job, and there was apparently a lot to say about it. I’d been there twenty minutes and my eyes were beginning to cross. I wondered if I should tell him his office looked like a whorehouse. I decided not to.
 
“Do you see my position, Mr. Spenser,” he said, and swiveled back toward me, leaning forward and putting both his hands palms down on the top of his desk. His nails were manicured.
 
“Yes, sir,” I said. “We detectives know how to read people.”
 
Forbes frowned and went on.
 
“It is a matter of the utmost delicacy, Mr. Spenser”—he was looking at himself in the glass again—“requiring restraint, sensitivity, circumspection, and a high degree of professionalism. I don’t know the kind of people who usually employ you, but …”
 
I interrupted him.
 
“Look, Dr. Forbes, I went to college once, I don’t wear my hat indoors. And if a clue comes along and bites me on the ankle, I grab it. I am not, however, an Oxford don. I am a private detective. Is there something you’d like me to detect, or are you just polishing up your elocution for next year’s commencement?”
 
Forbes inhaled deeply and let the air out slowly through his nose.
 
“District Attorney Frale told us you were somewhat overfond of your own wit. Tell him, Mr. Tower.”
 
Tower stepped away from the wall where he had been leaning and opened a manila file folder. He was tall and thin, with a Prince Valiant haircut, long sideburns, buckle boots, and a tan gabardine suit. He put one foot on a straight chair and flipped open the folder, no nonsense.
 
“Carl Tower,” he said, “head of campus security. Four days ago a valuable fourteenth-century illuminated manuscript was stolen from our library.”
 
“What is an illuminated manuscript?”
 
Forbes answered, “A handwritten book, done by monks usually, with illustrations in color, often red and gold in the margins. This particular one is in Latin, and contains an allusion to Richard Rolle, the fourteenth-century English mystic. It was discovered forty years ago behind an ornamental façade at Godwulf Abbey, where it is thought to have been secreted during the pillage of the monasteries that followed Henry the Eighth’s break with Rome.”
 
“Oh,” I said, “that illuminated manuscript.”
 
“Right,” Tower said briskly. “I can fill you in with description and pictures later. Right now we want to sketch out the general picture. This morning President Forbes received a phone call from someone purporting to represent a campus organization, unnamed. The caller said they had a manuscript and would return it if we would give a hundred thousand dollars to a free school run by an off-campus group.”
 
“So why not do so?”
 
Again Forbes answered. “We don’t have one hundred thousand dollars, Mr. Spenser.”
 
I looked around. “Perhaps you could rent out the south end of your office for off-street parking,” I said.
 
Forbes closed his eyes for perhaps ten seconds, inhaled audibly, and then went on.
 
“All universities lose money. This one, large, urban, in some ways undistinguished, loses more than most. We have little alumni support, and that which we do have is often from the less affluent segments of our culture. We do not have one hundred thousand dollars.”
 
I looked at Tower. “Can the thing be fenced?”
 
“No, its value is historical and literary. The only market would be another university, and they would recognize it at once.”
 
“There is another problem, Mr. Spenser. The manuscript script must be kept in a controlled environment. Air-conditioned, proper humidity, that sort of thing. Should it be kept out of its case too long, it will fall apart. The loss to scholarship would be tragic.” Forbes’s voice sank at the last sentence. He examined a fleck of cigar ash on his lapel, then brought his eyes up level with mine and stared at me steadily.
 
“Can we count on you, Mr. Spenser? Can you get it back?”
 
“Win this one for the Gipper,” I said.
 
Behind me Tower gave a kind of snort, and Forbes looked as if he’d found half a worm in his apple.
 
“I beg your pardon?” he said.
 
“I’m thirty-seven years old and short on rah-rah, Dr. Forbes. If you’ll pay me, and do your Pat O’Brien impressions somewhere else, I’ll see if I can find the manuscript.”
 
“This gets us nowhere,” Tower said. “Let me take him down to my office, Dr. Forbes, and lay it all out for him. I know the situation and I’m used to dealing with people like him.”
 
Forbes nodded without speaking. As we left the office he was standing at his window, hands clasped behind his back, looking at the snow.
 
The administration building was cinder block, with vinyl tile, frosted glass partitions, two tones of green on the corridor walls. Tower’s office was six doors down from Forbes’s and not much bigger than Forbes’s desk. It was done in beige metal. Tower got seated behind his desk and tapped his teeth with a pencil.
 
“It’s really slick how you can charm a client, Spenser.”
 
I sat across from him in the other chair. I didn’t say anything.
 
“Sure,” he said, “the old man’s kind of a ham, but he’s a damn good administrator, and a damn fine person.”
 
“Okay,” I said, “he’s terrific. When I grow up I want to be just like him. What about the Godwulf Manuscript?”
 
“Right.” He took an eight-by-ten color print from his manila folder and handed it to me. It showed an elegantly handwritten book lying open on a table. The words were in Latin and around the margins in bright red and gold were drawn knights and ladies and lions on their hind legs, and vines and stags and a serpentine dragon being lanced by an armor-clad hero on a plump and feminine horse. The first letter at the top left on each page was elaborately drawn and incorporated into the design of the margins.
 
It was taken three nights ago from its case in the library’s rare book room. The watchman punched in there at two and again at four. At four he found the case open and the manuscript gone. He can’t say positively that it wasn’t there at two, but he assumes he would have noticed. It’s hard to prove you didn’t see something. You want to talk to him?”
 
“No,” I answered. “That’s routine stuff. You or the cops can do that as well as I could. Have you got a suspect?”
 
“SCACE.”
 
“SCACE?”
 
“Student Committee Against Capitalist Exploitation. Revolution at the far-left fringe of the spectrum. I don’t know it the way courts want it known; I know it the way you know things like that if you’re in my line of work.”
 
“Informer?”
 
“Not really, though I’ve got some contacts. Mostly, though, it’s a gut guess. It’s the kind of thing they’d do. I’ve been here for five years. Before that I was with the Bureau for ten. I’ve spent a lot of time on radicals, and I’ve developed a feel for them.”
 
“Like the late director developed a feel for them?”
 
“Hoover? No, he’s one reason I quit the Bureau. He was a hell of a cop once, but his time came and went before he died. I got enough feel about the radical kids not to classify them. The worst of them have the same things wrong that zealots always have, but you can’t blame them for getting rigid about some of the things that go on. That ain’t Walt Disney World out there.” He nodded out his window at the blacktop quadrangle where the slush was beginning to collect in semi-fluid patterns as the kids sloshed through it. A thin and leafless sapling leaned against its support stake. It was a long way from home.
 

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00309SD02
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Dell (September 30, 2009)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 30, 2009
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2337 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 210 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 6,383 ratings

About the author

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Robert B. Parker

Robert B. Parker

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Robert B. Parker (1932-2010) has long been acknowledged as the dean of American crime fiction. His novel featuring the wise-cracking, street-smart Boston private-eye Spenser earned him a devoted following and reams of critical acclaim, typified by R.W.B. Lewis' comment, "We are witnessing one of the great series in the history of the American detective story" (The New York Times Book Review). In June and October of 2005, Parker had national bestsellers with APPALOOSA and SCHOOL DAYS, and continued his winning streak in February of 2006 with his latest Jesse Stone novel, SEA CHANGE.

Born and raised in Massachusetts, Parker attended Colby College in Maine, served with the Army in Korea, and then completed a Ph.D. in English at Boston University. He married his wife Joan in 1956; they raised two sons, David and Daniel. Together the Parkers founded Pearl Productions, a Boston-based independent film company named after their short-haired pointer, Pearl, who has also been featured in many of Parker's novels.

Parker began writing his Spenser novels in 1971 while teaching at Boston's Northeastern University. Little did he suspect then that his witty, literate prose and psychological insights would make him keeper-of-the-flame of America's rich tradition of detective fiction. Parker's fictional Spenser inspired the ABC-TV series Spenser: For Hire. In February 2005, CBS-TV broadcast its highly-rated adaptation of the Jesse Stone novel Stone Cold, which featured Tom Selleck in the lead role as Parker's small-town police chief. The second CBS movie, Night Passage, also scored high ratings, and the third, Death in Paradise, aired on April 30, 2006.

Parker was named Grand Master of the 2002 Edgar Awards by the Mystery Writers of America, an honor shared with earlier masters such as Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen.

Parker died on January 19, 2010, at the age of 77.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
6,383 global ratings
1st book in Spenser series
5 Stars
1st book in Spenser series
I'm a fan of the Spenser novels but somehow missed ever reading this book, which launched the series. His friend and sidekick, the dangerous character Hawk, does not make an appearance until later in the series. Also missing is his girlfriend, Susan the psychiatrist, who humanizes Spenser and provides the occasion for much sparkling dialog. This book is pure Spenser, blundering around and annoying people until he figuratively shakes the villain out of a tree. This novel and those that follow are much better than the TV "Spenser for Hire" series they inspired.
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Top reviews from the United States

Lisa Shea
5.0 out of 5 stars A great beginning to a fantastic series
Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2003
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This was the first book in the Spenser series. Robert Parker had obviously done his homework well - he wrote his doctoral thesis on the Private Eye genre of writing! An English Professor living in the Boston area, Parker was sure to write a story near and dear to his heart.
The plot: an illuminated manuscript is stolen. A student is killed, his girlfriend framed, and a tie to left-wing politics, drugs, and all the rest is involved. The story brings our first look at Joe Broz, but Spenser kills off his only two "muscle men" we meet. We also meet Spenser's two favorite cops - Lt. Quirk and Frank Belson.
The story is in "a university" which is studiously unnamed, in Boston by Roxbury. We get the girl's parents on the hill in West Newton, the English Professor on the beach at Marblehead. Lots of talk about the drives between these places. A double murder at Jamaica Pond, a stay at the Boston City Hospital. The final scene takes place at the Copley Plaza hotel.
Wow, what a different "Spenser" from the most recent books! Spenser has gone through a DRAMATIC transformation since this first rough-and-dirty portrayal. In many ways, Spenser is just beginning to develop his personality in this story. There's no Susan, no Hawk, no self-assured steadfastness. Spenser drinks a lot, puts himself down, wisecracks a bit too much, and (this is the best part) sleeps with a mother AND her daughter within 24 hours. It was just too much! Oh, quite enjoyable, of course. All the basic Spenser components are there, in a sort of rough form. The plot was good, the people excellent, the descriptive scenery as always lovely.
Those who follow Spenser through the series will note that Parker introduced a few ideas here which he later abandoned. Spenser talks about going to games in Boston with his dad as a kid. He actually only came to Boston as a teenager, having grown up in Laramy, Wyoming. Spenser talks about not growing up on a farm. even though he pretty much did. Strangest of all, when he's alone in the house with the sleeping girl, he talks about feeling like his dad did when "all the rest of us" were asleep. The rest of us??? He's an only child! Still, those are minor points in an overall enjoyable beginning to what develops to be a fantastic series.
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L. J. Roberts
4.0 out of 5 stars Spenser - the beginning
Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2010
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First Sentence: The office of the university president looked like the front parlor of a successful Victorian whorehouse.

Boston PI Spenser (with an "s" like the poet) has been hired by a university president to recover a 14th century illuminated manuscript. He is directed to a SCARE, the Student committee Against Capitalist Exploitation and Terry Orchard, one of the members, whom he finds along with her aggressive boyfriend, Dennis. Spenser receives a 2 a.m. call and finds Terry drugged. Dennis dead and the evidence of a professional hit.

I've not read this book since the 1970s and it is an interesting cultural look back. I am very happy fashions have changed away from white vinyl boots and leisure suits and that technology has advanced from mimeographs and typewriters. As silly as some of the slang sounds today, at least it wasn't as profane as today's speech.

It is also interesting looking at Spenser in his later 30s. He still thought he was funnier than anyone else did. This is a pre-Hawk, pre-Susan Spencer. As annoying as Susan can be, the one thing she did bring to the series was Spenser's monogamy.

What hasn't changed is Spenser's doggedness, determination to see the case through, dedication to the innocent and his cooking. I am always amazed that he has just the right ingredients in his kitchen to make a wonderful meal.

What Parker did extremely well was description, dialogue and plot. With a very few words, you knew where you were and the other characters in the scene. He often employed analogies--"The wet wool smelled like a grammar room coatroom."--which put you right into his scene. His dialogue, even with the slang of the period, was always tight, crisp and real. As to plot, the story started a bit light and annoying. However, once it took hold, it hit its stride and I was completely engrossed.

Re-reading this very first book makes it clear as to why I have read every other book Parker wrote.

THE GODWULF MANUSCRIPT (PI-Spenser-Boston-Cont/1973) - VG
Parker, Robert B. - 1st of series
A Dell Book, ©1973, US Paperback - ISBN: 04401129613
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Top reviews from other countries

Joel
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Read !! Love this series!
Reviewed in Canada on July 6, 2023
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Showed up early ! Love these novels!
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ged
5.0 out of 5 stars Superb, fast-moving private-eye novel in the classic style
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 28, 2023
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Oh my goodness, this is a corking read!

It's not the first Spenser novel I've read, but it's the first Parker wrote. I've enjoyed all the five or so I've read in the series, but this might be my favourite so far. It's just so fluent, witty, and classic.

At first, I thought it might be a bit cosy--the search for a medieval manuscript on behalf of a university. But that's just the trigger: no sooner has Spenser taken the job than he's accosted by heavies. And off we go.

Spenser is my kind of detective. A decent man with scruples, in the tradition of Chandler's Marlowe. He's a 6'3" ex-boxer, but a clever, well-read guy too, so he can beat people up both physically and verbally. He's rational, stable, and relatable. (The drink-addled, loser-type detective is not my favourite to read about. I prefer heroes to anti-heroes.) Also, he wisecracks magnificently.

Parker is a superb writer. His prose and dialogue are sharp, rhythmic, and addictive. I couldn't put The Godwulf Manuscript down. (I was travelling at the time. If you need a book to read on a plane, train, or holiday, I suggest this would be perfect.)
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Loren
5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful read
Reviewed in France on January 18, 2019
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This is an early Spenser, before Susan, before Hawk, before Henry. But it really sets the scene for the novels to follow, and is enjoyable throughout. Highly recommended.
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Constant Bookworm
5.0 out of 5 stars The first of the Spensers
Reviewed in Germany on February 17, 2013
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I love this series and thought I had them all, then I found this, the first one. Equally good without Susan and Hawk, Spenser emerges fully armed from the brain of his creator and goes straight into battle, tough as nails and fuelled by a spring of hidden mercy.
As always, the plot is perfectly constructed and the dialogues are snappy. Don't miss it.
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Anthony Cook
5.0 out of 5 stars Spenser Unhitched
Reviewed in Australia on July 27, 2015
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Its not the best story I've ever read but I liked it a lot. It's my 12th Spenser and while I agree Parker might have got better with successive stories, there's something about this one, his first, that I especially liked. I liked the single Spenser. I also liked the 2nd one he wrote, "God Save The Child" I think it was, in which he meets Susan S, but I think that in the later ones his hero’s character suffers a little, from being "married".
As I said in another Spenser review I wrote - pretty sure it was "Sixkill" - I'd like to see Ace Atkins do one with those two splitting up, and then a few more with Spenser being unattached for a while. It's not that I'm at all misogynistic, at least I hope it's not, it's simply I think Spenser as a loner, with just Pearl to come home to - that's another thing, I wouldn't mind if something happened to Pearl and he got a Kelpie or a Jack Russell cross, I'm not that drawn to German shorthaired pointers, or any pointers - mulling over his case in his otherwise empty apartment, the dog notwithstanding, while working through a bottle of bourbon, that to me is a hauntingly appealing scenario. A bit more rawness and insecurity, not knowing where his next pay-check, meal, or lay might be coming from. Hmm,... I think I get it.
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