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This is one of my favorite Spenser novels, because in it the detective accomplishes two things which Parker writes about with an extraordinary combination of sympathy and cleverness: Spencer saves a troubled young person trapped in a world of vicious adults, and he does so by devising an unorthodox solution to an otherwise unsolvable moral dilemma. Early Autumn was such a book, and may be Parker’s masterpiece; Ceremony is very much like it and almost as good.

Teenager April Kyle has left home, and is turning tricks on the street. Spenser locates the girl eventually, but not before angering crime lord Tony Marcus (requiring our hero to summon his friend Hawk as backup) and uncovering a web of corruption stretching into the heart of the Boston schools. Spenser’s real problem, though, is April, who prefers hooking to living with her parents. And from what Spenser has seen of her parents, April has a point.

The novel has many vivid scenes of the corrupt underbelly of Boston: a tour of the Combat Zone, a sad glimpse of a rundown apartment building filled with hookers, a visit to a “sheep ranch� (a bordello specializing in extraordinary perversions), and an amusing account of an orgy of underage girls and Boston bigwigs that metamorphoses into a donnybrook before descending into a free-for-all.

This is an entertaining novel, and its ending will leave you with something to think about too.