Damned if You Do

July 15, 2013
Ornery Jesse Stone again puts justice ahead of the law in Brandman’s assured third continuation of Parker’s series featuring the Massachusetts smalltown police chief (after 2012’s Fool Me Twice). Stone has two serious matters on his plate: endemic patient abuse at a nursing home and the stabbing murder of an unidentified prostitute at a motel. Donnie Jacobs is in the first stages of Alzheimer’s, but Stone is shocked to find him in fear of physical abuse and frequently sedated. Stone’s hackles are raised even higher when he learns that the owners of Golden Horizons Retirement Village have a track record of patient neglect and mistreatment, making him determined to bring them to book any way he can. Getting traction on the homicide requires the detective to reach out to unsavory underworld figures. This will be comfort food for Parker fans, but others may find it a tad bland. Agent: Helen Brann, Helen Brann Agency.

August 15, 2013
Brandman's third installment of Parker's second-string franchise springs a pair of seriously malnourished cases on Paradise, Mass. The Jane Doe found in bungalow 12 of the Surf and Sand Motel was barely old enough to vote when someone stabbed her to death. Convinced that the victim was a prostitute, Paradise police chief Jesse Stone (Robert B. Parker's Fool Me Twice, 2012, etc.) asks mobster Gino Fish to work his connections in order to identify her. Gino sends Jesse to Boston madam Clarice Edgerson and her associate Thomas Walker. Although Jesse and Clarice are clearly playing opposite ends of the street, they develop a surprising mutual respect. Not so for Walker, who tells his competitor Fat Boy Nelly that he'd love to see Jesse dead. Nor is Walker the only one, for the sad shape in which Jesse's found his retired accountant, Donnie Jacobs, has pitted Jesse against the Golden Horizons Retirement Village, whose director, Dr. Benedict Morrow, is dealing with Donnie's dementia by drugging him insensate and tying him to his bed. Jesse mobilizes Paradise's fire, health and buildings departments against Golden Horizons, revealing hundreds of code violations and threatening to get the place condemned. Both Morrow and Philip Connell, the head of Amherst Properties, the cut-rate firm that recently purchased Golden Horizons, swear vengeance against Jesse. So who'll get a piece of the police chief first--the mobbed-up pimp or the nursing-home executive? After two rounds of wondering whether Brandman can ape his master's style and structure and learning that he basically can, it's uncanny to see him toss off a lazy, low-stakes, low-tension entry that's so similar to so many of Parker's own lesser efforts.

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September 1, 2013

Brandman's third Jesse Stone installment after Parker's death (after Robert B. Parker's Fool Me Twice) will help meet insatiable demand for all things Parker. Expect holds. [See Prepub Alert, 3/25/13.]

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2013
The girl is young, pretty, and looks vaguely familiar to Paradise Police Chief Jesse Stone. She's also dead. She checked into the decaying bungalow resort with cash and an alias: undoubtedly, a working girl. Jesse feels he at least needs to determine her identity to avoid the indignity of an unmarked Jane Doe grave. The man who might provide a starting point is Gino Fish, the Boston crime boss. Gino claims to know nothing, but he sends a pimp named Thomas Walker to Stone. Meanwhile, Stone is dealing with a nursing-home runaway who happens to be an old friend with midstage Alzheimer's. He's being mistreated, but how do you take down a billion-dollar health-care conglomerate? In the end, Jesse has a more favorable view of the sex industry than he does of some health-care purveyors. Brandman, who worked closely with Parker on the Jesse Stone television movies, does a fine job moving the Jesse Stone series forward. He continues to be the gold standard for mystery writers attempting to preserve the Parker brand.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)