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Double Play
Robert B. Parker
Putnam, 2004. 288 pages.
The promotional copy for Double Play promises a tale of redemption, and Robert B. Parker, the accomplished writer of crime fiction, delivers.
Joseph Burke is a wounded -- in mind, body, and spirit -- veteran of World War II. While recovering from injuries sustained at Guadalcanal, his wife leaves him, and the cumulative effect of his history is that he has become a man who “don’t much care . . . about anything.” He is the quintessential empty shell of a man; and because Parker shows us the contrasting emotive, responsive pre-war Burke through a series of chapters under the heading of “Pentimento,” his cold, blank stare is palpable in the terse, partial sentences that are Burke’s mode of communication throughout the novel.
A stint as a boxer leads to work in organized crime collecting debts, which in turn leads to an assignment as bodyguard to Lauren, the daughter of a crime boss, who needs protection from her violent ex-beau. Protection leads to sexual involvement with Lauren, but various troubles cause both the sex and the bodyguard job to come to an end. Before long, Burke is in the office of Branch Rickey, who hires Burke to protect Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play in major league baseball. The year 1947, which was to become a pivotal year in American sports and society, now has the potential to become pivotal for Joseph Burke, whose heart and conscience have been on leave long after his physical wounds have healed.
Burke’s professional relationship with Robinson soon takes on a personal aspect as the former begins to see firsthand that white stereotypes of blacks are inaccurate and that fair play is preferable to deceit and violence. While undergoing this process of what liberation theologians would call “conscientization,” Burke is faced with a series of threats to Robinson. In the process of deflecting these, he also finds himself once again dealing with Lauren, his newly recognized feelings for her, and her need to be saved from a sick and hurtful relationship.
Parker strikes all nails fully on the head in this novel. He offers fully realized characters and takes us into their worlds without bogging down in the minutiae of the trades of the crooked boxer or the bag man or the bodyguard. The ambiance of the baseball field and stadium and players’ lives under the microscope are similarly evoked. The result of Parker’s discipline in these areas is that the seemingly hopeless trajectory of the wounded lives of Burke and Lauren comes across with the most punch, along with the need to take on the thugs and bosses whose interests are served by maintaining that downward spiral.
And redemption does come -- by way of violence, scheming, sex, and unexpected alliances that keep the reader hungrily turning pages until the very end. Double Play is a singularly American story of personal and societal healing that will appeal to the fans of the hard-boiled and gritty tale with a touch of grace -- in this case the grace of Jackie Robinson -- thrown in to ensure that it will all work out in the end.
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