Robert Parker - Wilderness

Newman didn't speak.

"In a way it's too bad," Vincent said. "I wish you were the guy in my hypothesis, because if you were I could shake your hand"-Vincent put his hand out to Newman. Newman took it-"like this and say I think you're a hell of a man." Newman shook Vincent's hand. He said, "Hypothetically speaking, Lieutenant, shake her hand too."

Vincent stood up and shook hands with Janet. "Thanks for the Scotch," he said.

He and Croft went out to their car. Vincent got in the passenger side.

Croft walked around to the driver's side and opened the door to get in.

With one foot in the car he looked back at Janet and Aaron Newman standing together at their back door. He raised his right fist and held it above his shoulder for a moment. Then he got in the car and drove away.

Robert B. Parker is the author of five previous novels The Godwulf Manuscript God Save the Child, Mortal Stakes, Promise Land, and The Judas Goat all of them about a Boston private detective known as Spenser. Promised Land won the Edgar All Poe Award in the USA for the best myste novel of 1976. Wilderness is his first non-Spenser novel.

Robert Parker and his wife, Joan, are co-authors of Three Weeks in Spring, an autobiographical book. They live in Lynnfield, Massachusetts, with their two sons, David and Daniel.