Silent Night by Robert B. Parker and Helen Brann - Book Review #136

Don't let the title fool you, this novel is all Spenser and should be read by anybody who is a fan of the series.  The story only takes place during the Christmas season.

Slide, a street-kid staying at Street Business, a local shelter that tries to offers a safe place to stay and help the kids get jobs, comes to Spenser looking for his support.  Street Business is being threatend and may close, throwing all the kids back on the street.

Once Spenser and Hawk start poking around they discover that things are not as they seem and the problem is much more complicated than first suspected.

This was the book Parker was working on when he passed away.  His long-time literary agent was given permission to complete his work.  She did a wonderful job of it too.  Although the book was shorter than most of his previous novels Brann was able to channel Parker's economy of words into a fine addition to the cannon of Spenser stories.

Perhaps the only part of the story that was a bit too easy to come by was how quickly and readily Spenser was able to enlist the help of Quirk and Belson.  But, they all go back a long way and perhaps the spirit of the season made them more agreeable and willing to help.  This is a small complaint and I have no idea if that was part of the original manuscript or what Brann brought to the table.

I am still grateful that Spenser has been able to continue without Parker, he is in good hands with Helen Brann and Ace Atkins.

Robert B Parker's website is where is work is continued.

http://www.robertbparker.net/

Robert B Parker

Helen Brann

Book Report #71 - Painted Ladies by Robert B. Parker

Spenser is hired to protect a man who is prepared to pay a ransom for the return of a rare painting.

It does not go well.

Spenser takes it on himself to discover the killers and uncovers a larger conspiracy involving art stolen by the Nazis, academia and a shady organization.

This book was a bit different in that the whole of the crime was wrapped up in a higher moral task of returning stolen art to rightful owners who suffered untold losses during World War Two.

The bad guys were creative, smart and nearly invisible but they made one crucial mistake; underestimating Spenser.

This was a first rate book, the only disappointment I had with it was the absence of Hawk who's take on cases and his interplay with Spenser is one of the things I look forward to.

This was well worth the time to read.

Truly Parker had his character down pat.  I love reading a book where the author is in complete command.

Robert B Parker

Book Report #70 - Robert B. Parker's Fool Me Twice by Michael Brandman

Once again Brandman manages to pull off a beautiful balance of a story.

Jesse Stone is pursuing multiple cases at the same time, which is more realistic than most cop stories that focus on only one case.  I'm sure cops are working lots of things at once.

Here Jesse looks into a complaint of a water bill that is too high, the arrest of the daughter of a prominent citizen for distracted driving causing bodily harm, the arrival of a movie shoot and a troubled ex-husband terrorizing his ex-wife who is the star of the film.

This was a wonderful romp, an easy read and completely enjoyable.

Brandman is solid in the role of writing new Jesse Stone novels.

Michael Brandman

Tom Selleck as Jesse Stone.

The Man Himself - Robert B Parker

Book Report #69 - Robert B. Parker's Killing the Blues by Michael Brandman

This was the first Jesse Stone novel written by another author after Parker's death.

Michael Brandman was a perfect writer to take over the series; he was deeply involved in producing the Jesse Stone movies starring Tom Selleck.  One of the first things Brnadman did was to move Jesse into the house that he occupies in the movies.  I thought that was a nice touch mostly because I came to Jesse Stone via the movies.

Brandman was able to take up Parker's style of writing with seeming little effort.  The dialog was perfect and the narrative was in keeping with Parker's own.

But was the book any good?

Yep.

Jessee is confronted with multiple events; there is a beautiful promoter who wants to set up a rock concert festival in Paradise, there is a rash of cars being stolen with one ending in murder and, unknown to Jesse, he's being stalked by an ex-con who he arrested in LA during the period he was a drunk on the job.

I loved how the author was able to balance the mundane events of being a small town cop (sorry, chief of police) with the extraordinary events of mob crime and psycho killers on the loose.

I am so happy that Jesse Stone is such capable hands. 

Michael Brandman

Tom Selleck as Jesse Stone

Robert B Parker

Book Report #53 - Back Story by Robert B Parker

Sue recently went on a book reading rampage, first reading every Spenser novel, in order, then reading every Janet Evanovich novel.

Now she's starting on the Jesse Stone novels. I thought I would read the book where he first appeared. (according to Wikipedia).

Spenser is hired to find the killer of a woman who died 28 years in the past.

He uncovers more than his client is willing to learn and continues his investigation after he is asked to stop. Spenser, with the help of Hawk, soon find the murder to be buried in layers of cover-ups.

I always love the humour and larger-than-life confidence in Parker's characters and the dialogue is perfect. Nobody wrote dialogue like Parker.

A very entertaining book.

Book Report #41 - Case of the Vanishing Beauty by Richard S. Prather.

Case of the Vanishing Beauty

by

Richard S. Prather.

Prather is my favorite author from the paperback area of mystery fiction.  Published in 1950, I was lucky enough to read a 1962, Gold Medal reprint of Prather's first Shell Scott novel.

Being a fan of Robert B. Parker's Spenser novels I've always been happy to know that there are 42 Shell Scott novels waiting for me as well.  Both authors had fantastic dialogue and humor in their books.  I've come to look forward to Prather's opening paragraphs where he typically describes a woman.  

In this book a beautiful woman comes to Scott's office asking him to find her missing sister.  The story then uncovers the world of drug trafficking and cults.  For a fist book this one had plenty of twists and I was surprised at just how relaxed Prather's prose came out.  The book came it at 160 pages making it just the right length for a tight mystery story.

Like I said, I like Prather's style, here's an example:

She looked hotter than a welders torch and much, much more interesting.

She was in her early twenties, and tall.  About five nine, and every inch of it loaded.  Her lips were the dangerous red of a stop light and her eyes were the same black as the masses of black hair piled high on top of her head.  She was slim, but with hips that were amply ample and high, full breasts that she was careless about but nobody else would be.  Plus a flat stomach, a slim waist, and golden skin smooth as melting ice cream.

 Prather was hard-boiled here's a passage that I found chilling:

After so long a time you get a little sick of violence.  You see guys gasp and bleed and die, and it makes you feel a little funny, a little sick while its happening, when it's right in front of your eyes.  But it isn't ever quite real when it's going on, when you're in it.  Maybe a muscle man slugs you, or a torpedo takes a shot at you, or you're pulling the trigger yourself or smashing a fist into a guy's face, and you're hurting or crippling or killing some trigger-happy hood.  But when it's actually happening, you've got adrenalin shooting into your blood stream, your heart pounds, your breath comes faster, pumping more oxygen into your veins.  Glands and body organs start working overtime to keep you sharp, keep you alive, and you're not the same; you're not thinking like the same guy.  It's all kind of blur like a picture out of focus jumping in front of your eyes, and you don't think much about what's going on, just let your reflexes take over.  If the reflexes are trained right, and if you're lucky, you come out of it scared but O.K.  Nothing to it; all over.

But when it is all over, when you've got time to think, that's when you get sick remembering vivid little details you hardly noticed at the time.  The way a body jerked when a bullet ripped through fine skin and flesh and muscle and bone, or the way it jerked just before it stopped being a man and became what they call down at the morgue a "dead body" or the "deceased."  Maybe you even wonder what kind of man he was, what he liked for breakfast,  when he was born, stupid things like that -  and wonder what made him get a gun in his hand and like the feel of it.  Maybe you even wonder what it is that goes out of a man when 158 grains of lead drive into his brain or his heart.  Maybe you get sick and your stomach turns upside down and then it's all over and you forget about it.  Almost.

So to hell with it. 

 I ate it up.  A very good book.

Book Report #11 of 26

Potshot

by

Robert B. Parker

The late grate Robert B. Parker!

There is only one author that Sue and I truly share in admiration.  The books of Robert B Parker and his Spenser series especially, were one of the first things we shared when we first started dating.

The first Parker novel I ever read was Crimson Joy  the murders in the story were brutal and I was surprised Sue suggested the book to me.  But what really came through was the character of Spenser; ever confident, strong and funny.  The humor of Parker's books never come out of the plot but always through the dialog between the characters in the story.

If you get in to the Spenser series you will find that, in the end, you won't remember the plots nor will you care about them because what you loved the best was the dialog and the relationships that Spenser has.  His best friend and sometimes partner Hawk is one of the best characters in mystery fiction - ever.

Potshot itself was not one of Parker's best stories.  As stories go, not much really "happens" until the very end.  This book would be a real treat to a serious fan of the series. Parker gathers around Spenser and Hawk all the other tough guys that Spenser has met throughout his long career to help him discover what is wrong in Potshot CA

Give this one a pass until you've read at least 10 of the novels prior to this one.

But was it any good?  Well, it was only okay. But reading Parker is always easy; his words fall right off the page and once you've realized you've read 335 pages you'll swear it felt like a short story of 25 pages.

Save this book until you're really in to the series then it will be much more enjoyable for you.