"Excellent Sunny Randall entry"

Boston private detective Sunny Randall goes into an emotional tailspin when her ex-husband Richie tells her that he is getting remarried. Even though she divorced him she never stopped loving him. She just couldn't be married or live anyone else except her bullterrier Rosie. Unable to cope with the pain of Richie's remarriage, Sunny visits psychiatrist Dr. Susan Silverman. Although she doesn't know it, Susan is the girlfriend of the famous Spencer.

Needing something to occupy herself, Sunny takes on the case of Sarah Markham, a twenty year old college student, who wants her to find out who her real parents are. When Sunny talks to the Markhams they insist that they are Sarah's real parents; Sunny catches the husband in a lie about where he worked when Sarah was conceived. Two thugs beat up Sarah, telling her to drop the investigation or else. The same musclemen come after Sunny who meets them with her gun and some backup. The information she gets from these two goons leads her to the people who hired them. By the time the case is finished, two men are dead, one person is going to prison, Sarah learns who her biological mother is and Sunny is beginning to understand her fears of marriage.

Robert B. Parker's Sunny Randall series is not a female version of Spenser. She is a troubled woman who seeks help to regain her mental health as s she shows her emotions more than Spenser does and her methods of investigation are quite different as is her circle of friends. MELANCHOLY BABY is one of the author's best works with its stark prose, eccentric cast and a climax it is impossible not to love.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted September 1, 2004

Summary

Boston P.I. Sunny Randall-as conflicted as she is beautiful- helps a troubled young woman locate her birth parents only to uncover some dark truths of her own. My ex-husband was getting married to a woman I wanted to kill. I didn't actually know her, and killing her would only make matters worse. But I got as much pleasure out of the idea as I could before I had to let go of it. And so begins Melancholy Baby, the fourth novel in the bestselling series featuring Sunny Randall who now faces the unthinkable: the marriage of her ex-husband, Richie, to someone else. Despite the formality of divorce, Sunny and Richie's relationship had continued, in its own headstrong way, until Richie's desire for marriage overtook Sunny's need for freedom. So when college student Sarah Markham comes asking for help in finding her birth parents, Sunny realizes she must take the case, if only to distract her from her personal life. But life and work have a curious-and dangerous-way of intersecting. Before the investigation has a chance to take off, two key players are dead, and Sunny is back on a psychiatrist's couch, probing her own past for clues. What she discovers has the potential to shatter Sarah Markham's family and destroy her sense of self, while Sunny's own beliefs are put to the ultimate test. Emotionally complex and rich with insight, this is the Grand Master at his storytelling best.