Don't confuse the Robert B. Parker of Hard Case Crime's PASSPORT TO PERIL with the Robert B. Parker of the SPENSER novels. (But if you do, who can blame you?) The "original" Parker's 1951 novel concerns not a single Boston P.I., but one John Stodder and Maria Torres.
He's a journalist traveling on the Orient Express under the purchased passport of dead man, only he didn't know the name was legit. She's the dead man's secretary, and the corpse in question is Monsieur Blaye, a watch exporter who was headed to Budapest when he was killed. He was seemingly on business, although he failed to fill Maria in on the details and made her vow secrecy as to their destination.
Stodder's taking the trip because he's searching for his brother, an Air Corps soldier who's gone missing, thanks to the action of a guilt-ridden John. That hunt becomes a little secondary once he meets Maria, and it appears that the killers of Blaye are now after her and, by extension, him.
In an international thriller that's positively Hitchcockian, the refreshingly straightforward and WYSIWYG John and Maria run for their lives, FUGITIVE-style, while trying to figure out why Blaye was killed. The novel moves as fast as its characters, and that's largely because Parker writes like the consummate newspaperman he was — each chapter opens with a solid lead, and the supporting details fall from there. —Rod Lott
Buy it at Amazon.
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Second positive review I’ve read. Sounds like a good read.
Also, Spenser works out of Boston, not Chicago. . .