When mystery author Robert B. Parker passed away, I mourned the end of the Spenser and Jesse Stone mystery series,
as well as his Westerns featuring the enigmatic Virgil Cole.
Like many others, I was of two minds when it was announced that Parker’s novel franchises would continue but be written by other authors. Excitement over additional books with favorite characters, doubt that others could capture the style that made Parker’s books so successful.
Ace Atkins took up the Spenser series and really delivered, even as he introduced a new character (Sixkill) who helped expand Spenser’s world. The dialogue still drives the narrative, the pace is still swift, Spenser’s code is still in tact, and Susan and Hawk are still at his side. For the most part, the transfer of authorship has been seamless.
The Jesse Stone series was always a distant second to Spenser in my reading affections, despite the movies starring Tom Selleck, and I didn’t keep up as the series grew under new authorship. Parker wrote 9 novels about the ex-minor league shortstop who washed out of the Los Angles Police Department because of his drinking and ends up as the chief of police in Paradise, Massachusetts. After
Parker’s death, the franchise was handed off to Michael Brandman, who wrote 3 novels, and then to Reed Farrell Coleman who has also written 3.
Has Jesse Stone’s road been as smooth as Spenser’s?
To decide for myself, I read two early Jesse Stone novels, TROUBLE IN PARADISE and STONE COLD, then the last two in the
series, THE DEVIL WINS and DEBT TO PAY, both by Coleman.
Here’s my verdict:
The new books spend more time inside Jesse’s head as he remains absorbed by his relationship with alcohol, his ex-wife Jenn, and his missed chance to be the world’s greatest shortstop. Jesse still talks to his
picture of baseball great Ozzie Smith. Dix the therapist is back, too, both in Jesse’s thoughts and in scenes in which the two men discuss Jesse’s problems.
In early books Jesse has a number of female friends with benefits; in the later books he’s faithful to Diana, a former FBI agent now a security consultant in Boston. But there’s a precipice beckoning to Jesse in the
form of the new Paradise medical examiner. Tamara is an attractive woman with her own drinking problem. I sense an undercurrent of doubt that Jesse can continue to resist this doubly fatal mix of woman and drink. If you are not tired of alcoholic main characters in mystery novels, then the tension is grand.
For those who remember Spenser’s run-ins across several books
with the Gray Man, Coleman has introduced a similarly continuing bad guy named Mr. Peepers. I’m not sure why Mr. Peepers has spent the last 20 years carrying out a sick agenda of murder and torture, which would help the believability angle, but he’s a worthy opponent.
Two things stand out as significant differences between early and later Jesse Stone novels. First,
Coleman has departed from Parker’s staccato pace, except in some dialogue scenes where Jesse does his rtademark man-of-few-words act. Overall, the pacing is slower and the paragraphs much longer.
Indeed, in THE DEVIL WINS, the normally laconic Jesse delivers a 1.5 page paragraph explanation of how he caught the bad guy. In DEBT TO PAY, we're inside Jesse's angst in
nearly every chapter and action scenes are interrupted by explanations of why Jesse is or isn't going to do something. Despite some chunky paragraphs, the prose works well, although a few awkwardly phrased sentences stand out. The villain’s voice is heard at pivotal moments, the same as when Parker was writing.
Second, there is the assumption that the reader knows
the entire series’ backstory. For example, in THE DEVIL WINS, references are made to a person named Crow. This villain appeared in the early STONE COLD, but he and Jesse did not meet. But some 10 books later, it is obvious that both Jesse and Paradise cop Molly Crane have had a previous interaction with Crow. Alas, we don’t know the context or who Crow is. I’ll have to read more of the post-Parker books to find out.
Bottom line is that Jesse Stone is one of mystery fiction’s most complex, irritating, and heroic characters. Coleman has both captured and expanded this persona, while creating villain-based plots that manipulate Jesse’s flaws to good effect. A bit more editorial discipline would help, but like Jesse, perfection isn't why I'm reading them.
