|
|
Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 9, No. 9 |
|
Hit man Crow returns in Parker's
latest Chief Jesse Stone mystery
of TheColumnists.com
Robert B. Parker never wastes the services of a good character by just using him once. In all three of his popular mystery series--the Spensers, the Sunny Randalls and the Jesse Stones--Parker is constantly recycling characters and crossing them over from series to series.
That's why it's no surprise that the principal catylst of the action in Parker's "Stranger in Paradise" (Putnam, $25.95), the seventh in the Jesse Stone series, is Wilson "Crow" Cromartie, the Apache Indian hit man we met earlier in the series when he helped a heist team loot millions from nearby Stiles Island and escaped with most of the money.
Now "Crow" is back in Paradise,
Mass., where Jesse Stone is police chief, trying to track down
a Florida gangster's teenage daughter so he can take her back
to her dad.
Naturally, Chief Stone is worried Crow might start leaving dead
bodies lying around in Paradise, which, it turns out, he soon
does.
Crow is one of those great good-bad guys Parker loves to weave into his detective yarns. He's a stone cold killer, of course, but he also has a heart. He may have taken off with millions in loot from his last sojourn in Paradise, but he also is remembered by Stone as the man who helped save the lives of several women taken hostage by the heist gang.
Crow calls on Stone to let him know he'll be operating in Paradise. Stone warns Crow that he'll certainly try to put together a case against him for his role in the Stiles Island caper and also warns him not to do anything new stuff that's illegal if he doesn't want to wind up in jail.
Crow, who is big, stoic and afraid of nothing, certainly doesn't tremble in his boos after talking to Stone. He commands respect, much like the cold-blooded killer Javier Bardem won an Oscar playing in "No Country For Old Men." In fact, if this book is filmed by CBS with Tom Selleck as Stone, somebody should seriously think about seeing if Bardem is available.
Stone, like Parker's Boston P.I. Spenser, seems to like dangerous guys like Crow as long as they have respect for him. Like Spenser's hitman sidekick, Hawk, Crow might even be called upon by Stone to help him out in some future cases. That's the sort of relationship Parker likes to develop between his heroes and some of the anti-hero villains they meet.
As you might expect, though, Crow's local assignment soon gets complicated, especially when we learn that Amber Francisco, the teenage daughter of the gangster, has taken up with a cholo punk who's the head of a Latino gang in a neighboring community. Eventually, this means incursions into Paradise by both Latino gangsters and Florida gangsters, who aren't happy with the pace of Crow's work for them. All these killers would be happy to blow Chief Stone away along with Crow, a job easier to imagine than to accomplish.
Parker is a masterful storyteller and he wastes no time with his fast-paced, spare thrillers. "Stranger in Paradise" is no exception. You ought to be able to read the whole book while blowing the foam off a couple of lattes, but you'll be so engaged by what you're reading that you probably won't taste anything.
©2008 by Ron Miller. The book cover illustration is courtesy of Putnam. This column first posted March 3, 2007.
Ron
Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist
and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official
companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He currently
writes about television mysteries for MYSTERY SCENE magazine.
You can comment on this column online. Please address your message to either "The Editors" or Ron Miller. To send an email, click here and don't forget to mention Ron's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
|
|
|
Archives |
|
|