Tag Archives: Michael Brandman

Latest in Parker series is … fine, really

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damned if you do robert b parker michael brandman

One of my favorite writers was Robert B. Parker, who wrote scores of crime novels before his death in 2010. Best among them was the series that followed the exploits of Spenser, the Boston private investigator. But Parker also wrote a nifty, if short-lived, series with a believable female protagonist, Sunny Randall, as well as a series of westerns.

Maybe Parker’s most successful “other” series was that featuring Jesse Stone, a alcoholic former cop who is hired as police chief in the New England town of Paradise. Stone is troubled – for a male Parker hero – and struggles with his addiction and his relationships.

After Parker’s death, his wife, Joan (who has since passed) and his estate authorized writers to continue both the Stone and Spenser series. Ace Atkins, a mystery writer in his own right, does a very good job with new Spenser novels. Michael Brandman, who produced a series of Jesse Stone TV movies starring Tom Selleck, was tapped to continue the Stone books.

He’s done three now, with the latest being “Damned if You Do,” and it might be the weakest of the renewed series so far.

That’s not to say there’s not a lot to like about “Damned if You Do.” Brandman has captured the spirit of Stone, the small-town cop who won’t let anything stand in the way of bringing justice to the unjust. The supporting characters are perfect recreations of Parker’s.

But the latest is kind of thin and feels like something Brandman tossed off without a lot of effort.

Parker’s later books, while wildly satisfying, felt pretty slight compared to his meatier earlier stories, so the feeling that Brandman is coasting a bit here isn’t without precedent. But I’m ready to read a book that feels like Jesse Stone – and the writer behind his modern-day adventures – is breaking a sweat.

This story finds Stone investigating the death of a young woman in a seedy Paradise motel. Her death threatens to – but never quite – spark a dust-up between warring pimps.

More satisfying, in a way, is Stone’s crusade to shut down a town nursing home where patients are being abused. But even here, the resolution seems really easy.

Parker’s stories rarely had a lot of twists and turns, as his heroes found a path toward a resolution and bulled their way through to their desired outcome. It feels like, in some of the latter-day books, that the path is just a little too straight and hurdle-free.

‘Fool Me Twice’ carries on Parker tradition

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With 70 books to his credit, masterful crime writer Robert B. Parker passed away in 2010. It might have seemed, for a few moments anyway, that classic detective characters like Boston PI Spencer, tough investigator Sunny Randall and New England small town police chief Jesse Stone might have died with him, along with the leads of other Parker series.

Then the Parker estate picked crime writer Ace Atkins to continue the Spencer series and Michael Brandman, a writer and producer who worked with Parker on adapting the Jesse Stone stories into a successful series of appropriately somber TV movies, was tapped to continue Stone’s adventures.

Brandman’s second Stone book – titled, somewhat unwieldingly, “Robert B. Parker’s Fool Me Twice,” takes us back to the small town of Paradise and not one, not two, but three storylines for Stone to unravel.

Stone, a recovering alcoholic and former LA cop, has settled into his job as small-town police chief but isn’t any less anti-authoritarian. Stone clashes with town council members as well as other law enforcement officials on a couple of the matters he faces here. Paradise is host to a movie production company and its troubled lead actress, Marisol, who is being menaced by her estranged husband; there are also complaints by town residents that their water bills are mysteriously high; and Stone butts heads with a rich family and their privileged teenage daughter.

Brandman is a writer gifted at telling his tale in Parker’s voice, and he does so quite well here. One of the plotlines feels kind of abrupt and another – Stone’s response to the troubled teen – is familiar to fans of Spencer, who showed the value of tough love to a couple of errant young people in that series.

As with all of Parker’s creations, the heroes are more than capable – so much so that there’s very little credible threat to their safety or their plans.

But Brandman, like Atkins, knows what Parker fans want: A strong but soft-spoken hero who can handle any number of tough guys and guys who think they’re tough.

In Brandman’s hands, I’m hoping Jesse Stone will be around for years to come.

Carrying on Robert B. Parker’s legacy

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Me and Robert B. Parker go way back.

Sometime 20 years ago or more I bought a paperback copy of Parker’s “Taming a Seahorse” at a used book store and discovered his tough and smart Boston private eye Spenser. As written in spare — increasingly so, as the years went by — style by Parker, Spenser was a former boxer, former cop and intellectual “thug” who, like classic private eye heroes before him, took on hopeless cases and lost causes.

Spenser wasn’t a highly deductive detective. He was more likely to start pressuring peripheral players in a crime until they crumbled and pointed fingers at the Big Bad behind the scenes. Part of what was appealing, besides Spenser’s moral code, was his unwillingness to give up.

Spenser and another character created by Parker, Jesse Stone, have a lot in common. Sure there’s the series of CBS TV movies about Stone, a small town New England police chief (played on TV by Tom Selleck, who’s too old for the part but plays it to perfection). They share some of the same supporting characters but most importantly they share the same stick-to-it-iveness. Once Stone takes up a cause, be it an abused teen or victims of a sinister goon, he never gives up.

Parker, unfortunately, was mortal, unlike his best heroes, and died in January 2010. I was afraid his books and characters would die with him.

So far we haven’t heard about any other authors continuing Parker’s Sunny Randall books, or his series about stoic cowboys. But Parker’s estate and publishers have announced that a good mystery writer, Ace Atkins, will continue the Spenser novels with a new one to be published next year.

And Michael Brandman, one of the men behind the Jesse Stone TV movies, was chosen to continue the Stone books.

I wasn’t certain I would enjoy Brandman’s take, which is called “Robert B. Parker’s Killing the Blues.” But I read it this week and believe Brandman is the perfect guy to continue Stone’s advantures.

Right off the bat, Brandman makes some choices that vary from those Parker would make. He gives us a few sparing glimpses inside Stone’s mind, something Parker would pretty much only do when Stone, an alcoholic and troubled man, talked to his therapist.

Brandman also takes us — even more sparingly, thank goodness — into the head of one of Stone’s antagonists, a felon who comes seeking revenge because Stone, drunk and angry at his then-wife, had pistol-whipped the man years before. Stone’s past comes back with a vengeance in this book.

“Killing the Blues” has a lot going on, from the revenge-seeking felon to mobsters operating a murderous car theft ring to a molesting teacher to mean girls at the local high school in Stone’s picture-postcard town, Paradise.

Brandman balances it all quite well. Maybe as good as Parker at the top of his form. Maybe even better.

I’m looking forward to seeing what Ace Atkins will do with Spenser, but I’m sold on Brandman’s continuation of the Jesse Stone books. I can’t help but think Parker would approve too.