A recent (2020) entry in the Jesse Stone continuation series, this time by Mike Lupica (who also continues the Sunny Randall series). It raises what might be a problem with this sort of activity. I don't know how Parker himself handled his characters; did he overlap them between series? Lupica does here, and he does it too much for my taste. Stone and Randall are an item - OK, fair enough - but it goes much further, even Spenser gets a mention. And backstories of all kinds, personal and plot-oriented, come too much to the fore.
To an extent, this is inevitable. The secondary plotline is that participants in an old rape case are being hunted down. The main plot falls into the family secrets category. But do we need a visit to good old Hasty Hathaway (from the first Jesse Stone novel, Night Passage, reviewed below) in prison? Nope.
So, gripe over... Does the novel grip? Yes it does. Is the writing good? Yes it is. I didn't like it as much as Lupica's writing in whichever Sunny Randall I read, but nevertheless it is high quality. I fell for the red herrings and did not guess the final twist. Perfectly enjoyable and at key times genuinely thrilling.
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