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How is revenge best served? This might be the sequel to Small Vices. Here Hawk, the Spenser running mate for . . . . is it thirty years(?), takes three in the back while acting as a bodyguard. The result is extreme physical and psychic trauma. 'Nothing like being shot at and missed' said Churchill, but here of course the shooter didn't miss. While the quips, the jokes about manhood, the comments about race, the seething sexuality as well as resolve that is Hawk never ends, we do get a glimpse of why Hawk is Hawk, what he paid to become Hawk, and how anything else is less. The flirtation with mortality that Spenser underwent in Small Vices is also present but Parker presents it a little differently and in a manner that Hawk would not object to. And Susan, who showed a lot of hutzpah in Melancholy Baby, also plays a more substantial role here as well. Just don't expect her to start packing. I do find that dog tedious. But it's well worth the battle that Spenser is faced with, unqualified loyalty to the only person he loves after Susan and his own code which will be if not violated then tainted if Hawk has his way to take out the Ukranian Mob from bottom to top. We love Spenser because he can bloody the nose and crack the ribs of the foulest of humans, all the while quoting Sydney Carton's lines from The Tale of Two Cities. At first (Godwulf, Ceremony, A Savage Place, Rachel) it seemed like a gimmick but then I along with a million other Parker fans knew that this was what Spenser really was, a self educated patriot for the soul who would do the right thing or the next right thing, asking no quarter and giving none. He is one of George Orwell's 'hard men.' Spenser has a code. So does Hawk. They're just a little different. That's the story of Cold Service. Good stuff. Neither Spenser nor Parker ever disappoints. 5 stars. Thanks Mr. Parker, for keeping it going and never maling it in. Larry Scantlebury