Neil Fein's Blog

Callahan's Con
by Spider Robinson

After the mediocre Callahan's Key, this latest -- and possibly final -- installment in the Callahan series of novels and short stories is a breath of fresh air. The Place, a bar frequented by a close-knit group of friends and family, gets two large problems to solve: They end up on the receiving end of an extortion racket from Tony Donuts Jr., a small-time hood who wants an in to the mob; and a Florida state education board employee who wants Jake and Zoey to prove that they've been keeping up on the home schooling of their daughter, not realizing that Erin is a supergenius, way smarter than her folks will ever be -- the best education for Erin is to leave her alone, dammit. There's also telepathy, hypocrisy, bureaucracy, and social commentary hidden in plain sight.

Don't read the back jacket copy, it gives away some of the plot. But the plot is complex, and Mr. Robinson manages to rise above the deus ex machina plot devices of making his protagonists bulletproof and Erin being a teleport. But only barely. The book does suffer from the Spider Robinson disease of turning enemies into friends and one problem somehow ends up solving the other, but there's more here than that. There's a subplot involving Doc Webster that should have been fleshed out more, but what's there is good. And Erin finally becomes at least half of a main character, if at the expense of shoving her Mother onto the sidelines.

What am I complaining about? You don't read Callahan books for the florid prose, or for the artistically drawn characters. You read them to visit old friends -- and Jake and the Doc and Eddie and the rest are old friends by now. A fun book and a fast read. Recommended to readers of the series.