The Barnes & Noble Review April 1997 Spenser is back. In Small Vices, his 24th adventure, we find the private eye working on a case of wrongful incarceration — a case that reopens the murder of a Boston coed. Spenser's cynical and pushy nature gets him what he wants, when he wants it, but it gets under people's skin. Despite being threatened, he doesn't drop the case; Spenser is a man of principle and a man set in his ways. Suddenly we see Spenser as we have never seen him before: near death, having taken three bullets from a hired assassin. Most men would give up, but who ever said that Spenser was like most men?Spenser embarks on the long, hard road of rehabilitation with his friend, Hawk, and his lover, Susan, by his side. And from the start his mind is set on one thing: regaining the strength and skill to take on the would-be assassin face to face, man to man, until justice is done. Spenser has never come up against something quite like this — a professional killer who just might be his equal...and then some.