The first thing I want to say is that this is a good novel, in general. It may not be the best novel that I have read, or even the best novel that I have read this week (which would be The Valley by John Renehan), but it was a reasonably good read. Like other novels in what I call the genre of “pulp-mystery pleasure reading” (aka, beach books) Blind Spot kept up a brisk pace, and was a pleasant way to pass the time.
My complaint, though, is that I wish this novel would have been written without any attribution to Robert B Parker, with characters that were not from the Jesse Stone universe, and with a different setting. The reason is this: Blind Spot really isn’t a Jesse Stone novel at all. I knew that this would be the case as soon as I cracked open the book and saw margin-to-margin writing–where was all the blank space, sparse dialogue, and pregnant pauses of Robert B Parker!? While it is true that characters like Suit, Molly, Jesse, and Dix all make an appearance, they are not the same characters here. Somehow, even though there are more words on the page in this book, the characters are less alive–at least as Parker characters. I think they would work just fine in a different context.
Ultimately, I am glad that I signed this book out from the library, and I enjoyed reading it. However, the book also left be with a wistful sense of nostalgia–I miss Robert B Parker.
