Ceremony

Ceremony is the ninth Spenser novel by Robert B. Parker, first published in 1982. It is the first of three Spenser novels involving the character April Kyle, who returns in Taming a Sea-Horse and Hundred-Dollar Baby. Kyle is a 16-year-old girl who has run away from home and, apparently, turned to prostitution. Plot The book opens with Spenser and Susan Silverman talking with the Kyles about their missing daughter, April. Mr. Kyle apparently saw her in the act of seducing a John, a man about his age. He's livid at the thought of his daughter working as a prostitute and voices his opinion loudly. Spenser is clearly not interested in working for Mr. Kyle at any price, but the pleadings of Susan Silverman and Mrs. Kyle persuade Spenser to take the job (which he does for the nominal fee of one dollar). Spenser talks to a Smithfield, Mass. cop ( friend of Susan's named Cataldo) and gets a lead that some of April's old crowd might know something. Spenser literally strongarms a kid named Carl Hummel to find out where they think she might be: with a friend in Boston, Amy Gurwitz, who left town a few months before April did. Spenser goes to see Amy. She is living in a three-story home with a middle-aged man named Mitchell Poitras and tries to look the part of a sophisticated well-to-do woman even though she is no more than sixteen. He gets no information from her, but is convinced she knows something about April. (It turns out that Mitchell Poitras is a high-ranking figure in the Massachusetts school system and deals with a lot of troubled youths. He is using his position to funnel troubled girls into prostitution). Next Spenser heads to a part of Boston called the Combat Zone (Boston's red-light district). He asks a hooker about April and shows a photo he has of her. Her pimp, a strong-looking man who goes by the name "Trumps," tries to stop Spenser. Spenser takes Trumps's sap away from him and roughs him up with it. Once Trumps steps away, he learns April has been working for a pimp named "Red." The hooker warns Spenser to watch his back after roughing up Trumps because he hold grudges and that she will be beaten for what happened. Spenser offers to take her away and she laughs at him. Spenser enlists the help of Hawk and heads back to the Combat Zone to find Red. They find him in a strip bar, but Trumps and two thugs confront Spenser before he can question Red. Hawk arrives and takes out the two thugs by slamming their heads together.