Robert B. Parker's Killing the Blues (Jesse Stone Novels Book 10)

Michael Brandman does a wonderful job of carrying on the prose and tradition of Robert Parker's style of writing. I loved that he incorporated some features of the Jesse Stone movies starring Tom Selleck. It was a satisfying and thoroughly enjoyable read!

Just awful! Assume Parker left nothing in writing to make sure this type of garbage wouldn't appear wth his name attached. Before he cranks out another one, perhaps Brandman should be required to read the 50+ Spenser, Stone and Randall books. Slowly.

5 Stars for Parker once again. Thriller that you can't put down. Expect to be drawn in held hostage to the storyline.  Plan it for a time that you have a few hours and want to live and dwell in Paradise...

The first thought that came to mind was Jesse Stone does not smile. When I read that line in the book more than a few times, I'm thinking "really?" The characters and storyline didn't flow at all, either. Alexis was way too young for Stone: even HE has more scruples than that. I had been so excited to receive this book in the mail at first, and was extremely disappointed. Perhaps the author needs to read more Stone novels to grasp his true character.

This book fails in all the ways other reviewers have described. The writing is just terrible, flat and cliched and lacking in the skill Parker showed in writing dialog and doing a lot in few words. I will not be buying any more Jesse Stone books by this author. I'll read the originals instead.

My bad, I stupidly purchased this garbage thinking that it was Robert B. Parker. It isn't HALF Parker. It is simply a high school sophomore writing assignment gone terribly wrong. My copy hit the trash before page 20. I'd be embarrassed for Robert B. Parker except he must be getting some sort remuneration for having his reputation exploded across the cover at three-times the font size of the actual guy who pecked the keyboard. No writing was involved, trust me.

This is probably the worst book of the Jesse Stone series. I'm not sure because I haven't read the last two but this one was pretty bad. The Stone character has changed and the author writes like a teenager talks. I'm not sure I will read the rest of the series this was such let down.

This should have some kind of warning on the cover for Robert B. Parker fans: "This is NOT your guy." I tried to like this but it just ground the gears too often. Ham-handed exposition that read more like stage directions...for the love of RBP, let the characters tell us what's going on, what's gone on and why they are doing what they are doing. After stylistic differences, we have the none-too-small matter of fidelity to the Stone character. This version is way too far away from social norms (even for Jesse Stone). A lot of shooting and violence. Not exactly cerebral. The Chief of the Paradise Police Department comes off as the vigilante in charge...and his officers are paper-thin. Molly is a victim of the body-snatchers. Suit has apparently lost his marbles and his moral compass completely. The bad guys are comic book characters and a fair number of nitwits (car thief, school principal, school bully) go through some sort of magical redemption in unbelievably short order....kind of like a television episode. This guy couldn't sharpen Parker's pencils.

Michael Brandman's "Killing the Blues", the first Jesse Stone adventure not written by the late Robert B. Parker, is an enjoyable police thriller only slightly roughed up by a few questionable choices.

The main plotlines are just fine. In the central storyline, Jesse is stalked by a deranged criminal seeking revenge for the excessive police brutality inflicted on him back when Jesse was an out-of-control alcoholic in Los Angeles. I liked this plotline, as it took the history firmly established by Robert Parker- that Jesse was a mess back in the old days, prior to his arrival in Paradise, Massachusetts- and extrapolated a new consequence for Jesse to confront as a result of that time.

Another plotline has Jesse helping out a troubled student who threatened her school principal with a gun. Looking past the episode and trying to discover the reasons behind it, Jesse soon uncovers a messy situation involving many students and the dark secret making them all act out in inappropriate, damaging ways. This was more of a direct imitation of the kind of plotline Robert Parker did many times before (his characters helping troubled youth was always a favored Parker theme), but it was handled well, with Jesse behaving just as readers want him to in such a situation.

The final main plotline features Jesse playing hardball with a crime boss who is setting up a car theft ring in Paradise. When a civilian is killed during the course of one of the car thefts, Jesse puts the law aside and does what needs to be done to shut down both the operation and the crime boss, with unambiguous finality.

Some will probably describe this last plotline as going too far, in that it paints Jesse as a vigilante just as brutal as the criminal he is chasing. But it always seemed to me that, in every five or six entries of all his series, Robert Parker demonstrated that his characters were willing to administer their own justice when- in their view- the law just wouldn't suffice. Heck, I'm still reeling from the scene in "A Catskill Eagle" (about 20 Spenser adventures ago!) when Spenser and Hawk execute (yes, as in "kill") a couple of unarmed, defenseless pimps because of Spenser and Hawk's (probably correct) prediction that the pimps would have ultimately murdered the prostitutes in their employ for helping our heroes with their case. So, tough and gritty as it is, I had no problem with this particular storyline in the new Jesse Stone book. Guiltily enjoyed it, in fact.

My problems with "Killing the Blues"? There aren't many, but they're worth noting. And they're all tied into the unfortunate decision to make the Jesse Stone books now fall more into line with the occasional Jesse Stone television movies starring Tom Selleck.

Least harmful among the changes instituted here was having Jesse move into a cottage at the end of a footbridge, just like the one in the TV movies. Though annoying, this wasn't a terrible move, though it minimized the important function Jesse's comically under furnished condo (a framed action photograph of Jesse's favorite baseball player was the only adornment) performed in the previous books: reminding us that Jesse's job with the cops and his discomfort with the kind of cozy aloneness most other people often enjoy are both central motivators in his life.

The other changes are more problematic, as they all but negate the carefully-built continuity of the previous books. Two quick examples: Molly Crane, cop and administrative aide to Jesse, is now deliberately described and characterized in a bland way so readers can picture either the Molly of the previous books (an Irish Catholic with many children, who does her best to handle a libido-fueled independent streak) or the Molly of the TV movies (a likable but generally underused African American character who's mainly there to annoy Jesse with her quips). I miss the distinctive Molly of the previous books.

Also brought in is the watered-down, TV-movie version of Hasty Hathaway, the town selectman who served as the villain- and a quite dark, dangerous one- in the first Jesse Stone novel, "Night Passage". It would have been interesting to have THAT Hasty Hathaway return in "Killing the Blues", but instead we get the one from TV, a Hasty Hathaway whose crimes weren't all that serious and, after serving a little time in prison, now runs a used car dealership in Paradise.

I guess we're supposed to edit our earlier memories of the Hasty Hathaway in the novels because it simply doesn't make sense for the murderous, sociopathic Hasty Hathaway of the novel "Night Passage" to now be back in Paradise, haggling over the price of his used cars with Jesse. I guess we have to shrug and assume that both Jesse and the courts are more forgiving than we thought.

To conclude on an even-handed note, I do think that Michael Brandman did an overall nice job with the thankless task of continuing a well-liked print series established by a beloved author. I just hope he eases back on the "aligning the books and movies" thing, and lets the literary Jesse and the movie Jesse be their own distinct entities.

So, yes, I'll hang around to see what Mr. Brandman does next with this character and series I've always enjoyed. Even though, ahem, the author makes one other alteration in the series that I'm pretty sure the dog-loving Robert Parker would grumble about: He gives Jesse a cat.

But I won't complain, because the cat is very cute. Who says this longtime Parker fan isn't flexible?

I had hoped that the characters that I love would live on through Michael Brandman but alas it doesn't seem to be true. Jesse Stone and his companions are flat and one dimensional in this first effort. Brandman, who worked with Mr Parker on the Jesse Stone TV movies, can't seem to understand that each situation doesn't need to be resolved by the next commercial break. The resolution of each segment of the story was predictable, had no excitement and fell flat.

I was so excited when I thought that all of Robert Parker's wonderful characters would live on but after reading "Killing the Blues" I have to say, "Mr Brandman please don't try your hand with Spenser, Hawk and Susan." RBP's legacy deserves better.

Dialogue retains the old Parker banter, and the story is fun if at times a little predictable. Good book to read for the entertainment value. It's not gonna change your life, but it will make time spent waiting at the airport or doctor's office more enjoyable.

My only exposure to Jesse Stone was through Tom Selleck's portrayal through the various "made for TV" movies. The first few were the best. I have not read any of Parker's books but found Brandman's writing very simplistic and much of the story in duplicate to the TV shows with no mystery or excitement. You still have the dialogue of Jesse but way too much throughout the book. Very little description and an immense use of the word "He" in the beginning chapters. I will try one of Parker's novels but I would not recommend Brandman's variation. It just was not very good. Maybe that is why the network has not made another Jesse Stone movie.