Rough Weather

Robert Parker’s “Spenser” novels never let me down.

Robert Parker was the best.
He is missed, but reading his work never grows old.

I love Parker’s books. I think I have read them all and am starting them again. Great characters and great mysteries.

ROUGH WEATHER is vintage Robert Parker, featuring Spenser, a private detective with a self-deprecating sense of humor, subtle tongue-in-cheek wit, and a personal code of honor that he refuses to violate. Parker’s light, clean, linear writing style, fun dialogue, suspenseful plots twists, and familiar characters and relationships are a familiar delight in this Spenser offering. This is the Spenser that Parker’s fans know and love. Though the plot is a little simpler in this book compared to some others, he still delivers. Parker’s death a few years ago was a real loss. His myriad other readers and I were hoping he’d be writing the Spenser and Jesse Stone books forever. Since his death, the Parker family has hired other authors to continue writing the Spencer and Jesse Stone brand books—Ace Atkins for Spenser, and Reed Farrell Coleman for Jesse Stone. Although Ace Atkins was respectful of Parker’s vision for the Spenser books , and was doing a fairly decent job trying to replicate Parker’s inimitable style, voice, and character relationships, in his most recent book, SLOW BURN, he seemed to be devolving into his own style, which was a real disappointment. In SLOW BURN the villains take center stage, and Parker’s Spenser, and the other continuing characters in the series, become superfluous. They devolve into going-through-the-motions cardboard cut-outs, anemic and wooden compared to the fullly-fleshed and vibrant personalities Parker wrote. I’m hoping this latest Atkins book is just a speed bump, and that he’ll again ‘channel ‘ Parker’s inimitable talnet and style when writing the next book in the series. Unfortunately, Reed Farrell Coleman who was hired to write the Jesse Stone series has turned its main character into a macho cop, the exact opposite of Parker’s vision. Parker’s Jesse was a flawed but thoughtful man, trying to master alcoholism and rebuild his self-destructed life, while cleverly catching bad guys you love to hate.. Sadly, the heavy-handed Colman, has morphed the series into a typical cop-and-bad-guy genre book, with more graphic and violent plots, predictable, emotionally superficial characters, and boring pedestrian writing. I can’t read more than a page or two of the book samples Amazon offers to tempt you to buy. Coleman has jettisoned all the depth and charm and wisdom Parker put into Jesse. along with the values that made him a character you really cared about. Imposing his own writing style on these books was criminal in my estimation. He’s doing well with the series’ sales though, with new readers that are content with Coleman’s same-old-same old, insensitive, tough-guy ‘hero,’ and dull, plodding writing style. Those of us who know better, realize that the authentic Jesse died along with Parker. I own all of the original Parker books in either hardbound or softbound editions, but have begun adding the vintage Parker books to my digital library too, so they are at my fingertips when I need a Robert Parker ‘fix.’ Buy and enjoy ROUGH WEATHER, and then start the Spenser series from the beginning. Read the authentic Jesse Stones too. Great author. Great books.

I loved the book. I love all Robert Parker books

There are no bad Spenser stories!