Joe Broz, the Boston Godfather of The Godwulf Manuscript is the first of a series and introduces Parker's series protagonist, Spenser, so in this novel he is not yet the fully-drawn character of the later books. Spenser is a single, emotionally unattached character, who likes to cook and has already developed a self-deprecating sense of himself, but he is without either a Susan Silverman or a Hawk, who both will figure prominently in the later stories. He is more like the lonely P.I. of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe mysteries, the recognizably tough, wise-cracking nemesis of crime from the traditions of the detective novel. And this early Spenser drinks more, is more casually sexual, and philosophizes less than he will in the forthcoming adventures.

In The Godwulf Manuscript Parker also introduces a number of continuing character types, Lieutenant Martin Quirk, the best-dressed of Boston's finest, and his sidekick...