I’ve written here numerous times before about my love of Robert B. Parker books, but not for quite a long time now. The other week when we lucked into a woman getting rid of her mom’s stuff and gave us carte blanche on her jigsaw puzzles, she also offered up any of the books too. Donna grabbed a few and I picked up 4 hardcovers of Robert B. Parker books. Only one of which was actually written by Mr. Parker, well one and a half.
The first book was the fourth novel of the Virgil Cole/Everett Hitch western series called Blue Eyed Devil. I had read the first two of these books, and while I enjoyed them, I didn’t seek out any more, very much unlike the Spenser series, which at one time I had a copy of every one of the books. This book was the last one Mr. Parker wrote before he passed away, but the series has continued with Robert Knott churning them out. Number eleven is due out this October.
The second book I took was a Jesse Stone novel called Colorblind. I can’t tell you how many of these books, about an ex-LAPD detective turned police chief of a small Massachusetts town called Paradise, I have read, maybe four or five of the nine he wrote. There are now twenty Jesse Stone books total, the one I just finished was written by Reed Farrel Coleman who took over the series back in 2010. Mr. Coleman wrote nine books before giving way to Mike Lupica who is responsible for the latest two books.
The third book I got was Little White Lies, a Spenser novel, that was written by Ace Atkins. Previously I had read one of the other Spenser books by Mr. Atkins, but didn’t really like it. This one was different, I enjoyed it, at least for the first half. The book was only maybe a third or so longer page-wise than the typical Robert B. Parker, but the text is denser, making the halfway point feel about the time the book should have finished.
The fourth book, which I haven’t read yet, is called Silent Night: A Spenser Holiday Novel. This book was unfinished at the time of his death and was completed by Parker’s longtime literary agent Helen Brann.
I did get something interesting from the third book, I got to add to my collection of Spenser’s Crime Buster Rules for the first time in 15 years: On the list of crime-busting techniques, talking to the nosy neighbor was always in the top five.