By Michael Brandman (G. P. Putnam’s: 2011)

After a long run, most authors get tired of characters they have created and decide to kill them off. Agatha Christie, for example, tried to kill off Hercule Poirot, but he wouldn’t die. Jesse Stone’s creator, Robert Parker, died this past year, and the character of Jesse Stone was taken over by

Michael Brandman who had collaborated with Parker on the movie and TV versions of Parker’s books.
But the new author won’t have to go to the trouble of killing off Jesse Stone: he’s going to be serving the rest of his life in prison for various felonies committed during this book. As far as I can see, he is guilty of, at the minimum, kidnapping, unlawful restraint, unlawful use of weapons, extortion, home invasion, aggravated battery, burglary, theft, and conspiracy to commit each of the foregoing with each of his faithful staff members. Brandman seems to believe that everything is all right as long as the intent is to do good…the ends justify the means, you know.
There are the usual sub-plots going through the book, and the way they are resolved can only be described as ‘treacle’. All the bad guys either die or have miraculous change of heart and dedicate their lives to doing good and being virtuous.
This book really should have been titled Killing Jesse Stone. What a betrayal of Robert Parker!

--Reviewed by Carol Boston - © 2012