DWD's Reviews

Published  in 2012 by Smart Pop I discovered Robert B. Parker's Spenser about 20 years ago. In a way, that is sad because I could have been enjoying Spenser for a lot more years. But, in a way it was fantastic because I had so many Spenser books to read to catch up and there were new ones coming out regularly. For years I was able to read or listen to his books as quickly as I wanted. But, eventually I caught up and had to just wait for the new ones. Sadly, in 2010 Parker died so all of his series came to an end. In Pursuit of Spenser is an attempt to honor the long and noteworthy career of Robert B. Parker. Editor Otto Penzler has collected 14 essays by such writers as Lawrence Block, Loren D. Estleman and Dennis Lehane (and one work by Parker himself that explains Spenser) in a must-read for any fan. Although the focus is on Parker and Spenser, many of the other of the dozens of characters that  he created are covered as well. His role in re-invigorating the detective ...

The Jesse Stone novels continue a rally for the legion of Parker fans - score this one a double. Published in 2007 by Putnam 304 pages To use a baseball analogy (Robert B. Parker fans would surely approve...), this one keeps the current rally of good Parker books going. If you are unsure what I am referring to then you must not get much of the baseball comments that Stone and Spenser use. Anyway, a rally is a run of good offensive plays when your team is down a few runs. Ideally, those offensive plays would be smashed out of the park home runs. However, in a pinch, a base hit beats a strike out. Robert B. Parker (1932-2010) Now, notice that I did not label this one a great book. This is not a home run. It's more of a double. It is a good book but not Parker's best. It's not even the best Jesse Stone novel. The mystery is not terribly complicated (I think I could have solved this one) but I enjoyed this quick read. In a lot of ways the mystery is s...

I think I've read this one before... Published in 2008 by Putnam 304 pages I am a gigantic fan of Robert B. Parker. I've read all of the Spenser books, the Stone books and the Randall books. And I'm slowly "re-reading" the Spenser books as audiobooks. It is not lightly that I give this book two stars. Robert B. Parker  (1932-2010) The Stone novels were always different than the Spenser / Sunny Randall novels. Spenser and Sunny always have that buddy network to fall back on (especially Hawk and Spike, respectively) Jesse has always been alone, except for his on-again off-again ex-wife, who actually makes his sense of being alone even stronger. That whole formula is thrown out. Instead, we have a combination of a re-make of Spenser's April Kyle and Paul Giacomin stories told under Jesse Stone this time around. This time around we now have Amber. Rather than Spenser's Hawk (a mysterious, unstoppable African-American who operat...

The Good News: It's a Robert B. Parker Book... The Bad News: It's not a particularly good one. However, Robert B. Parker's books remind me of those bumper stickers that say 'A Bad Day Fishing is Better Than a Good Day at Work.' A bad Jesse Stone book is still a fun read. In Sea Change , Stone's police department is investigating a woman's body found floating in the harbor. Along the way, Stone discovers lots of perversion, money, yachts and messed-up rich kids. Or, as his psychologist puts it, Stone is working on a case 'in which control and loveless sexual objectification is rampant.' Stone comments that pornography is fun for about the first 10 seconds and then it loses most of its appeal for him (he has to wade through hours of personal videotapes of the stuff in the search for victims and suspects) because it gets so repetitive. Unfortunately, this book has the same problem. Lots of sex parties and videotape. Lots of rich b...

Jesse Stone returns to form After the rather awful Stranger in Paradise I was afraid the whole series was going to just fizzle. I was pleasantly surprised with Night and Day . It is a return to higher standard of reading to which I had grown accustomed. The plot moves along nicely, the witty banter is plentiful. The case is distressing but not super-hero level. I will not go into all of the plot details. Those are outlined by others on the page. All in all, this is a pleasant and quick read. Everything I look for in a Parker novel - detecting, banter, psychobabble and a bit of romance (in a macho sort of way, of course). I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. Reviewed on May 30, 2009. Also mentioned in this review:

A good ending to both series. Jesse Stone #9 Sunny Randall #7 Robert B. Parker couldn't have scripted a better ending to the Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall series if he had tried. Sadly, there will be no more of this series due to the death of Robert B. Parker but, happily, both end on a strong note. "Split Image" is really two books wrapped up in one. There is a small Sunny Randall mystery that is semi-independent of the main investigative line of Paradise Police Chief Jesse Stone. Both are good and throw in the interactions between Randall and Stone you have the makings of a strong addition to both series. I won't go into plot details here, but I can say that I do recommend this one for followers of either series. I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Split Image . Reviwed on April 26, 2010.