''Taming a Sea-Horse'' is the 13th Spenser novel by

Robert B. Parker Robert Brown Parker (September 17, 1932 – January 18, 2010) was an American writer, primarily of fiction within the mystery/detective genre. His most famous works were the 40 novels written about the fictional private detective Spenser. AB ...

. The title is from the

Robert Browning Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings ...

poem "

My Last Duchess "My Last Duchess" is a poem by Robert Browning, frequently anthologised as an example of the dramatic monologue. It first appeared in 1842 in Browning's ''Dramatic Lyrics''. The poem is composed in 28 rhyming couplets of iambic pentameter. In ...

." The book's epigraph is of the poem's closing lines: "Nay, we'll go / Together down, sir: / Notice Neptune, though, /Taming a sea-horse thought a rarity, / Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!" The story follows Boston based PI Spenser as he searches for April Kyle, the prostitute he met in events described in the earlier novel ''

Ceremony A ceremony (, ) is a unified ritualistic event with a purpose, usually consisting of a number of artistic components, performed on a special occasion. The word may be of Etruscan origin, via the Latin '' caerimonia''. Church and civil (secular) ...

''. Kyle's story continues in '' Hundred-Dollar Baby''.

Recurring characters

*Spenser *Hawk *Patricia Utley *Dr. Susan Silverman, Ph.D *April Kyle *Frank Belson *Tony Marcus

External links

Parker's page on the book
1986 American novels Spenser (novel series) Novels set in Boston Novels set in New York City {{1980s-crime-novel-stub