Robert B. Parker's Debt to Pay (A Jesse Stone Novel) Hardcover

 

I've finished "Debt to Pay" the 15th book in his Jesse Stone series by Robert B. Parker.

Product Description

The brilliant new novel in Robert B. Parker’s New York Times–bestselling series featuring police chief Jesse Stone.

All is quiet in Paradise, except for a spate of innocuous vandalism. Good thing, too, because Jesse Stone is preoccupied with the women in his life, both past and present. As his ex-wife, Jenn, is about to marry a Dallas real-estate tycoon, Jesse isn’t too sure his relationship with former FBI agent Diana Evans is built to last. But those concerns get put on the back burner when a major Boston crime boss is brutally murdered. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Jesse suspects it’s the work of Mr. Peepers, a psychotic assassin who has caused trouble for Jesse in the past.

Peepers has long promised revenge against the Mob, Jesse, and Suit for their roles in foiling one of his hits — and against Jenn as well. And though Jesse and Jenn have long parted ways, Jesse still feels responsible for her safety. Jesse and Diana head to Dallas for the wedding and, along with the tycoon’s security team, try to stop Peepers before the bill comes due. With Peepers toying with the authorities as to when and where he’ll strike, Jesse is up against the wall. Still, there’s a debt to pay and blood to be spilled to satisfy it. But whose blood, and just how much?

About the Author

Robert B. Parker was the author of seventy books, including the legendary Spenser detective series, the Jesse Stone series, and the Virgil Cole/Everett Hitch Westerns. Winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award and long considered the undisputed dean of American crime fiction, he died in January 2010.

Reed Farrel Coleman has been called a “hard-boiled poet” by NPR's Maureen Corrigan and the “noir poet laureate” in The Huffington Post. He has published twenty-three novels, including nine books in the critically acclaimed Moe Prager series, and most recently, Where It Hurts. He is a three-time recipient of the Shamus Award for Best Detective Novel of the Year, a winner of the Barry and Anthony Awards, and is a two-time Edgar Award nominee. Coleman lives with his family on Long Island.

Product Details
Series: A Jesse Stone Novel (Book 15)
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons; First Edition edition (September 13, 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399171436
ISBN-13: 978-0399171437

My Review:

3.5/5

Robert B. Parker's Kickback (Spenser)

I've finished "Kickback" the 28th book in his Spenser series by Robert B. Parker.

Product Description

P.I. Spenser, knight-errant of the Back Bay, returns in this stellar addition to the iconic New York Times–bestselling series from author Ace Atkins.

What started out as a joke landed seventeen-year-old Dillon Yates in a lockdown juvenile facility in Boston Harbor. When he set up a prank Twitter account for his vice principal, he never dreamed he could be brought up on criminal charges, but that’s exactly what happened.

This is Blackburn, Massachusetts, where zero tolerance for minors is a way of life.

Leading the movement is tough-as-nails Judge Joe Scali, who gives speeches about getting tough on today’s wild youth. But Dillon’s mother, who knows other Blackburn kids who are doing hard time for minor infractions, isn’t buying Scali’s line. She hires Spenser to find the truth behind the draconian sentencing.

From the Harbor Islands to a gated Florida community, Spenser and trusted ally Hawk follow a trail through the Boston underworld with links to a shadowy corporation that runs New England’s private prisons. They eventually uncover a culture of corruption and cover-ups in the old mill town, where hundreds of kids are sent off to for-profit juvie jails.

Product Details
Series: Spenser (Book 28)
Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons; First Edition edition (May 19, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399170847
ISBN-13: 978-0399170843

My Review:

4/5

Robert B. Parker's Cheap Shot (Hardcover)

I've finished "Cheap Shot" the 43rd book in Robert B. Parker's Spencer series by Ace Atkins.

The iconic, tough-but-tender Boston PI Spenser returns in an outstanding new addition to the New York Times-bestselling series from author Ace Atkins.

Kinjo Heywood is one of the New England Patriots’ marquee players — a hard-nosed linebacker who’s earned his reputation as one of the toughest guys in the league. When off-field violence repeatedly lands Heywood in the news, his slick agent hires Spenser to find the men who he says have been harassing his client.

Heywood’s troubles seem to be tied to a nightclub shooting from two years earlier. But when Heywood’s nine-year-old son, Akira, is kidnapped, ransom demands are given, and a winding trail through Boston’s underworld begins, Spenser puts together his own all-star team of toughs. It will take both Hawk and Spenser’s protégé, Zebulon Sixkill, to watch Spenser’s back and return the child to the football star’s sprawling Chestnut Hill mansion. A controversial decision from Heywood only ups the ante as the clock winds down on Akira’s future.

Product Details
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult (May 6 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399161589
ISBN-13: 978-0399161582

My Review:

3/5

Robert B. Parker's Blind Spot (Hardcover)

 I've finished "Blind Spot" the book in his Jesse Stone series by Reed Ferrel Coleman.

Police Chief Jesse Stone is back in the remarkable new installment of the New York Times–bestselling series.

It’s been a long time since Jesse Stone left L.A., and still longer since the tragic injury that ruined his chances for a major league baseball career. When Jesse is invited to a reunion of his old Triple-A team at a hip New York city hotel, he is forced to grapple with his memories and regrets over what might have been.

Jesse left more behind him than unresolved feelings about the play that ended his baseball career. The darkly sensuous Kayla, his former girlfriend and current wife of an old teammate is there in New York, too. As is Kayla’s friend, Dee, an otherworldly beauty with secret regrets of her own. But Jesse’s time at the reunion is cut short when, in Paradise, a young woman is found murdered and her boyfriend, a son of one of the town’s most prominent families, is missing and presumed kidnapped.

Though seemingly coincidental, there is a connection between the reunion and the crimes back in Paradise. As Jesse, Molly, and Suit hunt for the killer and for the missing son, it becomes clear that one of Jesse’s old teammates is intimately involved in the crimes. That there are deadly forces working below the surface and just beyond the edge of their vision. Sometimes, that’s where the danger comes from, and where real evil lurks. Not out in the light — but in your blind spot.


Product Details
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult (Sept. 9 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399169458
ISBN-13: 978-0399169458

My Review:

3/5

Robert B. Parker's Bull River (A Cole and Hitch Novel) Hardcover

I've finished "Bull River" the 2nd book in his Cole and Hitch series by Robert B. Parker.

Itinerant lawmen Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch are back in the saddle with guns blazing in this gritty, intense addition to the New York Times–bestselling series.

After hunting down the notorious desperado Alejandro Vasquez, Territorial Marshal Virgil Cole and Deputy Everett Hitch return him to San Cristóbal to stand trial. No sooner do they remand him into custody than a major bank robbery occurs and the lawmen find themselves tasked with another job: investigating the robbery of the Comstock Bank, recovering the loot, and bringing the criminals to justice.

But when their primary suspect is found severely beaten outside a high-class brothel and turns out to be using a false identity to escape a torrid past, it is Alejandro who becomes the key to their investigation. Cole and Hitch are soon on the trail of the money, two calculating brothers, and the daughter of St. Louis’s most prominent millionaire in a Cain and Abel story that brings revenge to a whole new level.


Product Details
Series: A Cole and Hitch Novel
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult; 1st edition (January 7, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399165266
ISBN-13: 978-0399165269

My Review:

3/5

Silent Night: A Spenser Holiday Novel Hardcover

I've finished "Silent Night" the book in his Spenser series by Robert B. Parker.

A special treat for the holiday season – a rumination on Christmas, family, and the meaning of home as conceived by Robert B. Parker.

It’s December in Boston, and Spenser is busy planning the menu for Christmas dinner when he’s confronted in his office by a young boy named Slide. Homeless and alone, Slide has found refuge with an organization named Street Business, which gives shelter and seeks job opportunities for the homeless and lost. Slide’s mentor, Jackie Alvarez, is being threatened, and Street Business is in danger of losing its tenuous foothold in the community, turning Slide and many others like him back on the street. But it’s not a simple case of intimidation – Spenser, aided by Hawk, finds a trail that leads to a dangerous drug kingpin, whose hold on the at-risk community Street Business serves threatens not just the boys’ safety and security, but their lives as well.

Unfinished at the time of his death, Silent Night was completed by Parker’s longtime agent, whose decades-long association with Parker’s work gives her unique insight and perspective to his voice and storytelling style. Her contribution also speaks volumes about their enduring friendship.

About the Author

Robert B. Parker (1932-2010) has long been acknowledged as the dean of American crime fiction. His novel featuring the wise-cracking, street-smart Boston private-eye Spenser earned him a devoted following and reams of critical acclaim, typified by R.W.B. Lewis' comment, "We are witnessing one of the great series in the history of the American detective story" (The New York Times Book Review). In June and October of 2005, Parker had national bestsellers with APPALOOSA and SCHOOL DAYS, and continued his winning streak in February of 2006 with his latest Jesse Stone novel, SEA CHANGE.

Born and raised in Massachusetts, Parker attended Colby College in Maine, served with the Army in Korea, and then completed a Ph.D. in English at Boston University. He married his wife Joan in 1956; they raised two sons, David and Daniel. Together the Parkers founded Pearl Productions, a Boston-based independent film company named after their short-haired pointer, Pearl, who has also been featured in many of Parker's novels.

Parker began writing his Spenser novels in 1971 while teaching at Boston's Northeastern University. Little did he suspect then that his witty, literate prose and psychological insights would make him keeper-of-the-flame of America's rich tradition of detective fiction. Parker's fictional Spenser inspired the ABC-TV series Spenser: For Hire. In February 2005, CBS-TV broadcast its highly-rated adaptation of the Jesse Stone novel Stone Cold, which featured Tom Selleck in the lead role as Parker's small-town police chief. The second CBS movie, Night Passage, also scored high ratings, and the third, Death in Paradise, aired on April 30, 2006.

Parker was named Grand Master of the 2002 Edgar Awards by the Mystery Writers of America, an honor shared with earlier masters such as Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen.

Parker died on January 19, 2010, at the age of 77.

Product Details
Series: Spenser
Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult; 1st Printing edition (October 22, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399157883
ISBN-13: 978-0399157882

My Review:

3.5/5

Robert B. Parker's Damned if You Do (A Jesse Stone Novel) Hardcover

I've finished "Damned If You do" the 12th book in his Jesse Stone series by Robert B. Parker.

Police Chief Jesse Stone returns in another outstanding entry in the New York Times-bestselling series.

The woman on the bed was barely out of her teens. She wasn’t exactly beautiful, but she’d tried to make the most of her looks. And now, alone in a seedy beachfront motel, she was dead.

Paradise Police Chief Jesse Stone doesn’t know her name. Whoever she is, she didn’t deserve to die.

Jesse starts digging, only to find himself caught in the crosshairs of a bitter turf war between two ruthless pimps. And more blood will spill before it’s over.

Product Details
Series: A Jesse Stone Novel (Book 12)
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult; 1ST edition (September 10, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399159509
ISBN-13: 978-0399159503

My Review:

3.5/5

Robert B. Parker's Fool Me Twice (A Jesse Stone Novel) [Hardcover]

I've finished "Fool Me Twice" a book in the Jesse Stone series originally by Robert B. Parker but now written by Michael Brandman.

Product Description

Summer in Paradise, Massachusetts, is usually an idyllic season — but not this time. A Hollywood movie company has come to town, and brought with it a huge cast, crew, and a troubled star. Marisol Hinton is very beautiful, reasonably talented, and scared out of her wits that her estranged husband's jealousy might take a dangerous turn. When she becomes the subject of a death threat, Jesse and the rest of the Paradise police department go on high alert.

And when Jesse witnesses a horrifying collision caused by a distracted teenage driver, the political repercussions of her arrest bring him into conflict with the local selectment, the DA, and some people with very deep pockets. There's murder in the air, and it's Jesse's reputation as an uncompromising defender of the law — and his life — on the line.


About the Author

Robert B. Parker was the author of more than fifty books. He died in January 2010. Michael Brandman is the author of the New York Times bestseller Robert B. Parker's Killing the Blues. He is the award-winning producer of more than thirty motion pictures, and collaborated with Robert B. Parker for years on movie projects, the Spenser TV movies, and the Jesse Stone series of TV movies starring Tom Selleck. Brandman cowrote the screenplays for Stone Cold, No Remorse, and Innocents Lost, and supervised the screenplay adaptations of Night Passage, Death in Paradise, and Sea Change. He lives in California.

Product Details
Reading level: Ages 18 and up
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult; First Edition edition (September 11, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399159495
ISBN-13: 978-0399159497

My Review:

A big movie crew has arrived in town to shoot a film with popular actress Marisol Hinton.  Marisol has recently divorced her husband (he's also an actor) and uses this opportunity to get away from him (he's been stalking her).  He has no money and he is determined to get revenge by killing her and receiving the life insurance.  Jesse has suggested a bodyguard and Wilson Cromartie (aka Crow) is hired by his recommendation.

Meanwhile Jesse has witnessed a car accident between a young debutante teenager who is on the phone texting instead of paying attention to the road.  He decides to go all out to get her while everyone around him to leave her alone since her family is wealthy.  He soon realizes she is troubled and hopes he is able to reach out to her and tear down her walls.

Also Jesse has received some phone calls their water bills have been higher than usual.  The thing is there is no mention of any rate increases.

This is a very fast read with a lot of dialogue which kept the plot moving.  Jesse seems more caring and sensitive in this one.

3.5/5

Sixkill (Spenser Mystery) [Hardcover]

I've finished "SixKill" the 39th book in his Spencer series by Robert B. Parker.

Product Description
 
An extraordinary new Spenser novel from the beloved New York Times-bestselling author.

On location in Boston, bad-boy actor Jumbo Nelson is accused of the rape and murder of a young woman. From the start the case seems fishy, so the Boston PD calls on Spenser to investigate. The situation doesn't look good for Jumbo, whose appetites for food, booze, and sex are as outsized as his name. He was the studio's biggest star, but he's become their biggest liability.

In the course of the investigation, Spenser encounters Jumbo's bodyguard: a young, former football-playing Native American named Zebulon Sixkill. Sixkill acts tough, but Spenser sees something more within the young man. Despite the odd circumstances, the two forge an unlikely alliance, with Spenser serving as mentor for Sixkill. As the case grows darker and secrets about both Jumbo and the dead girl come to light, it's Spenser-with Sixkill at his side-who must put things right.

About the Author

Robert B. Parker was the author of more than fifty books. He died in January 2010.

Product Details
Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult (May 3, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399157263
ISBN-13: 978-0399157264

My Review: 

A young girl is found dead in film actor Jumbo Nelson's hotel room and Lt. Quirk is convinced that he is being framed for crime.  He asks Spencer to do his detective work and find out what happened and who could be involved.  Rita Fiore is also in for the ride and still flirting with Spencer (which is a treat).

Along the way he meets SixKill better known as Z a Cree Indian bodyguard of Jumbo.  Spencer beats him in a boxing fight and takes him under his wing.  He brings him to his friend Henry who owns a gym who is willing to train boxing to him.  We also learn of Z's earlier years which Parker inserts inbetween his training with Henry and Spencer.

There were cameos by some of Spencer's deadly friends (Tony Marcus and T Bop and Junior, Victor Del Rio, Chollo, Bobby Horse, Lt Samuelson and of course Captain Quirk).  Hawk is still in Eastern Asia.

This book goes out with a big bang and the last book Parker wrote since he died last January.  He is missed!

4/5

Thanks Laura from Penguin Canada for sending me this book to review, greatly appreciated!