Thu 1 Jan 2009
Reviewed by Walter Albert: Jesse Stone, Tony Hill & Stephanie Plum.
Posted by Steve under Characters , Reviews[3] Comments
ROBERT B. PARKER – Stone Cold. Putnam, hardcover, September 2003. Reprint paperback: Berkley, September 2004.
The fourth in Parker’s series featuring transplanted L.A. cop Jesse Stone finds Jesse faced with a pair of cold-blooded serial killers (is there any other kind?) in Paradise, a small New England town where Stone is the police chief, and which has the promise (at least since his arrival) of developing into a typical Murder Town, U.S.A.
Jesse is still in love with his ex-wife and seeing other women, trying to sort out his conflicting emotions with the help of a laconic psychiatrist, and committed to his job that offers a fresh challenge in each novel.
I had thought the thrill-killer as a subject of mystery novels was pretty well worn out, but Parker gives it a good run, although I didn’t read this as carefully as I have some Parker novels.
VAL McDERMID – The Torment of Others. St. Martin’s, hardcover, April 2005; paperback, August 2006.
McDermid’s series featuring criminal psychologist Tony Hill and DCI Carol Jordan has generated a BBC series that is inferior to the novels, and I just realized that three episodes from the most recent series on BBCAmerica are sitting unwatched on my DVD-R hard drive.
I have to admit that Tony Hill wears less well as a character than Carol Jordan (and I find this true of the TV series as well). However, McDermid seems to have found a pattern that pleases many readers as a brilliant, psychotic serial killer tests the skills of the police and consultant Hill.
I only wish that each successive novel didn’t seem less fresh than the preceding one.
JANET EVANOVICH – Ten Big Ones. St. Martin’s, hardcover, June 2004; paperback, June 2005.
In her tenth appearance, Stephanie Plum becomes the target of a hit man when she antagonizes a Trenton NJ street gang.
She spends a fair amount of time hiding out in the plush hideaway of her would-be boyfriend and super bounty hunter Ranger, getting turned on by sleeping in his bed and feeling guilty because she’s “unfaithful” to her other would-be (and more often than not her actual) boy-friend, Vice Cop Joe Morelli.
Usual loony bunch of characters, and a now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t plot line that more or less keeps things afloat.
January 1st, 2009 at 6:21 pm
I’ve found the BBC series based on Val McDermid’s work to be very interesting and I have been buying all the dvds. Robson Green stars as Dr. Tony Hill and the series is called Wire In the Blood. I like Robson Green as an actor and also can recommend his other excellent mystery series, Touching Evil.
The British consistently produce high quality mystery series that are far better than almost all the USA shows. I say almost because such US shows as The Wire, Homicide Life on the Streets, The Shield, and The Sopranos are top notch. But with these few exceptions the UK far outstrips us with quality TV.
This is the main reason I bought region free dvd players. I can play the dvds from all around the world, instead of being locked into only what the US produces.
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:32 pm
I don’t know what happened to the three episodes of “Wire in the Blood,” sitting unwatched on my hard drive. They seem to have disappeared.
I found the most recent series of “Wire in the Blood” on BBC America to be either markedly better than some of the earlier episodes or my appreciation of the series has undergone a miraculous change. I still miss Carol Jordan but her replacement managed to act her way into my heart.
I certainly have enjoyed many of the British crime programs but I am not indifferent to the time-consuming charms of a number of American series.
Unlike Walker, I don’t have a multi-region player and if I did add that component to my system, my horizons might expand but I fear that my already monumental task of keeping up with films and TV programs would become even more problematical than it is now.
January 3rd, 2009 at 1:19 am
You are right Walter about the time problem. I am hopelessly behind and buried under a massive pile of books, pulps and dvds. I know there is a way to slow down or stop the aging process but they haven’t discovered it yet and I’m running out of time. Our grandchildren will live alot longer, maybe hundreds of years, and look back with pity on our short lives filled with illness.
Today for instance, I had alot I wanted to accomplished but ended up only reading some more of Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates(if we don’t recognize scenes from our own marriages in this horror story of 1950’s life, then we married an angel), watched my usual tv episode of a series after dinner(this time Twilight Zone), took a nap so I can stay up half the night, watched a 2 hour pbs special on the German film makers influence on Hollywood(From Hitler to Hollywood), and now will pick out a film noir or crime movie to watch.
Looking back on the above it sounds like I did alot but I don’t feel like I read enough. I used to be able to read all day but I guess those days are gone.