Sunny Randall Books In Order

Publication Order of Sunny Randall Books

The “Sunny Randall” series follows main character Sunny Randall, who is a female detective. She was created by Parker so that Helen Hunt would play her in a movie, but it never happened. He kept the series going because his publisher asked him to. Both Randall and Spenser (another Boston detective that was created by Parker) have things in common, but also things that make them unique. There are six novels to the series.

Sunny Randall is a private investigator in the city of Boston, and used to be a cop. She has a bull terrier named Rosie, is a college graduate, and she would like to be a painter. Randall also has an ex-husband who is named Richie and Richie is from a mob family. Her father, Phil Randall, was also a cop, and he calls on Sunny to help investigate a case later on in the series (“Spare Change”, the sixth novel in the series).

Sunny also appears in Parker’s “Jesse Stone” series of novels and Jesse in turn appears in some of the Sunny books. This is a result of the two dating for a little while before they both realize that their relationship just is not going to work. It is also a result of Sunny appearing in “Split Image”, a Jesse Stone novel where she had a case of her own and carried a good portion of the novel all on her own.

“Family Honor” is the first novel of the “Sunny Randall” series written by Robert B. Parker and was released in the year 1999. When Sunny Randall takes a case from a wealthy family so that she can find their lost teenage daughter, she will be tested on their expectations on what a detective is supposed to do. Randall, through her contacts in the underworld, is able to find their daughter, named Millicent. Millicent has gone into prostitution and Randall rescues her from the vicious pimp that had Millicent under his thumb. Millicent refuses to go back to her family, and stays with Randall, who knows very little about raising a tough teenager. Sunny plays bodyguard to Millicent, who has committed greater crimes than running away, and Sunny has to defend this young girl from the mobsters. It forces Sunny to call on Richie, her ex-husband, who himself has mob ties and her gay friend Spike. There is a lot that Sunny must do with this alliance she has formed; including solving a murder and take care of a conspiracy that goes to the top of the government in Massachusetts and make over Millicent into a functioning young woman.

Fans of the novel enjoyed the dialogue found in the novel, finding there to be a lot of wit and humorous parts to it. Some found themselves reading the entire novel in a single day. Some found that the novel that the novel took them to wonderful places and was highly enjoyable. The novel exceeds expectations for some as they found the novel to really capture the female voice and perspective here. Some found that, like Parker’s other work, they really enjoyed it and found themselves finishing it really fast. This left them waiting impatiently for the next of his novels. Fans of the novel felt that even though she was like another of Parker’s characters, this one thinks and breaths like a woman, and not just what men want a woman to be like. Even though the novel has a bit of been there quality, Parker still manages to bring a quality story and brings fresh ideas to the book. Fans of the novel found themselves becoming fans of Robert Parker’s work and wanting to read more of his books.

Some readers did not like the way that the novel as it reads like Parker just made his biggest character (Spenser) a woman. Some find that Parker recycles part of something that he used once before in his Stone series, and some did not care for that, as he does not seem to bring anything new to it this time around. There were some who did not like how the way Parker uses threatening things to carry the story and with short chapters you have to read another to finish a simple conversation that was started in the previous chapter. Some found that the novel would actually work better if it was a screenplay, as there are quite a lot of pages of dialogue in it, and would later be used to film a movie with charismatic actors playing all of the parts.

“Perish Twice” is the second novel of the “Sunny Randall” series by written Robert B. Parker and was released in the year 2000. This time Sunny Randall must help three different women out of three equally dangerous problems. Family, friends, and business, for all of these reasons she must do this and they all may be deadly for her.

Fans of the novel liked the way that the novel grows a depth after what seemed like a simple start and the ending left things in a way that most books do not end up in. The fine writing that Parker does in the novel leaves the reader with many thoughts after reading the novel. Fans found themselves reading much more of the novel than they had originally planned on, instead of reading a couple of paragraphs, they read multiple chapters. Fans enjoy the skills and her ability to use the resources that she has at her fingertips very well. She even helps women get their independence, and she mostly has her life together, even though she is still in love with that ex-husband of hers.

Some readers did not like how much of a retread this novel feels, and everything that works in some of Parker’s other novels falls flat and feels grating here. Some felt that the novel has no plot to it and the novel is mainly made up of a lot of dialogue. Some readers felt that the novel is just boring and is Parker’s first failure as a writer. Some thought that the plot in the novel followed a set formula and the novel featured nothing but cliché characters.

One Response to “Sunny Randall”

1. Joaquin Durrell: 2 years ago

   I had hoped Parker’s page fillers of clothing descriptions (men are always going to be wearing a Harris tweed jacket), Susan Silverman (yes, we all know her makeup is perfect as is her dress, suit, etc), and psychobabble was gone, when Parker left the stage.
   Unfortunately not. Although the storylines and plots are still interesting, there’s the usual filler muck.

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