Blind Spot

A young college girl is murdered in the Paradise, Massachusetts, summer home of one of the profoundly wealthy one-percenters. The victim's boyfriend, Ben Salter, heir to the fortune, is missing, apparently kidnapped. When the crime is reported, Paradise police chief Jesse Stone is out of town attending the reunion of a minor-league baseball team. The reunion and the murder seem completely unrelated but become tenuously linked when a man resembling the reunion organizer, Vic Prado, is seen meeting with the kidnapped boy's father. The cast of characters expands to Prado's wife (an old girlfriend of Jesse's), a sexy FBI agent who falls for Jesse, a psychotic hit man known as Mr. Peepers, and various mobsters. Michael Brandman wrote the first three Jesse Stone novels after Parker's death and did a wonderful job of capturing the melancholy tone and spare writing style favored by Parker. Coleman keeps the characters and the somber atmosphere but makes the book his own stylistically. Readers anticipating a Jesse Stone novel will need to adjust. This is a Reed Farrel Coleman novel (not a bad thing, by any means), and Jesse and the Paradise crew are merely characters he borrows.--Lukowsky, Wes Copyright 2014 Booklist

The Jesse Stone novels, about perhaps Robert B. Parker's most complex character, are now being channeled by Reed Farrel Coleman. In this well-plotted tale, police chief Jesse Stone, a former minor league baseball player with big league possibilities before suffering a debilitating shoulder injury, reluctantly attends a reunion of his old Triple-A team, bringing back memories of his lost career and former love interest. Before he falls too deeply into the doldrums of what might have been, he's called back to Paradise, Mass., to investigate the murder of a young girl and the disappearance of her boyfriend. As Jesse and his team find themselves trying to untangle a web of lies, extortion, coverups, kidnapping, and murder, it may be that they all tie back to the reunion and Jesse's past. Reader Naughton hits the mark in his straightforward, no-frills narration. His characterizations are well delineated but subtle, with natural-sounding dialogue and just the right touch of regional accents. But Naughton shines with Jesse Stone, fully inhabiting the flawed but compelling character. Between Coleman and Naughton, Parker's protagonist is in good hands. A Putnam hardcover. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

A murder back home in Paradise, MA, cuts short police chief Jesse Stone's trip to his minor league baseball team reunion in New York City, organized by his former roommate Vic Prado. Ben Salter, son of a wealthy local investment banker is missing after the murder of his girlfriend; Ben is an unlikely suspect. Assuming Ben was kidnapped but puzzled by the lack of a ransom note, Jesse believes the elder Salter knows more than he is revealing. Oddly, Vic, his wife, Kayla (Jesse's former girlfriend in the baseball days), and Kayla's friend Dee also travel to Paradise. While Jesse and Dee fell for each other in New York, in Paradise, he senses she is hiding something. VERDICT Fans of both Parker's Spenser and Jesse Stone series will enjoy this 13th installment, after Damned If You Do. Like Spenser, Jesse is a man of honor who feels he must speak for the dead. Coleman's (The Hollow Girl) writing mimics Parker's, with short chapters, snappy repartee, and just enough action. While the ending seems hastily put together, it is undoubtedly set up for another book. Like all Parker novels, it is a great, fast beach read, recommended for all detective fiction fans. [See Prepub Alert, 3/10/14.] Edward Goldberg, Syosset P.L., NY (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Coleman (The Hollow Girl, 2014, etc.) follows MichaelBrandman (Robert B. Parker's Damned If You Do, 2013, etc.) into the Jesse Stone franchise, withresults that couldn't be more different.Before Jesse Stone was police chiefof Paradise, Massachusetts, or put in his time on the LAPD, he was a shortstopwith the Albuquerque Dukes, the Dodgers' Triple A club, his dreams ofbig-league glory canceled when a double-play ball relayed by second baseman VicPrado and a runner's hard slide into second took out his shoulder for good. NowPrado, of all people, is hosting a Dukes reunion in New York that Jesse feelshonor-bound to attend. He's never been close to the golden boy who stole his girlfriendKayla, married her, became a major league All Star and retired to become awealthy venture capitalist, and he has no idea Prado organized this event justso he could involve Jesse in his latest venture. Although Jesse does take thetime to bed Kayla's friend Dee Harrington, Prado's scheme to rope him in nevergets off the ground because Jesse has to scuttle back home to investigate themurder of Tufts student Martina Penworth, 18, and the disappearance of herboyfriend, Benjamin Salter, the only suspect. He has no idea that the crimes inhis backyard are as closely linked to Prado as his failure to make it to themajors. Meanwhile, Prado's mobbed-up colleagues decide they overreached inkidnapping Ben Salter to bend his father, Harlan Salter IV, to their will andoffer to make peace by withdrawing the demand they'd made on him. Dad has otherideas. If this all sounds more like Coleman than Parker, wait till you hear thedialogue. More densely and diffusely plottedand less punchy than its original, with characters who often speak in completesentences.If the Parker estate keeps pouring new wine into old bottles, who'llbe the next vintner? Mary Higgins Clark? Andrew Vachss? Janet Evanovich? Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A murder back home in Paradise, MA, cuts short police chief Jesse Stone's trip to his minor league baseball team reunion in New York City, organized by his former roommate Vic Prado. Ben Salter, son of a wealthy local investment banker is missing after the murder of his girlfriend; Ben is an unlikely suspect. Assuming Ben was kidnapped but puzzled by the lack of a ransom note, Jesse believes the elder Salter knows more than he is revealing. Oddly, Vic, his wife, Kayla (Jesse's former girlfriend in the baseball days), and Kayla's friend Dee also travel to Paradise. While Jesse and Dee fell for each other in New York, in Paradise, he senses she is hiding something. VERDICT Fans of both Parker's Spenser and Jesse Stone series will enjoy this 13th installment, after Damned If You Do. Like Spenser, Jesse is a man of honor who feels he must speak for the dead. Coleman's (The Hollow Girl) writing mimics Parker's, with short chapters, snappy repartee, and just enough action. While the ending seems hastily put together, it is undoubtedly set up for another book. Like all Parker novels, it is a great, fast beach read, recommended for all detective fiction fans. [See Prepub Alert, 3/10/14.]—Edward Goldberg, Syosset P.L., NY