Robert B. Parker's Damned if You Do (A Jesse Stone Novel)
The girl is young, pretty, and looks vaguely familiar to Paradise Police Chief Jesse Stone. She’s also dead. She checked into the decaying bungalow resort with cash and an alias: undoubtedly, a working girl. Jesse feels he at least needs to determine her identity to avoid the indignity of an unmarked Jane Doe grave. The man who might provide a starting point is Gino Fish, the Boston crime boss. Gino claims to know nothing, but he sends a pimp named Thomas Walker to Stone. Meanwhile, Stone is dealing with a nursing-home runaway who happens to be an old friend with midstage Alzheimer’s. He’s being mistreated, but how do you take down a billion-dollar health-care conglomerate? In the end, Jesse has a more favorable view of the sex industry than he does of some health-care purveyors. Brandman, who worked closely with Parker on the Jesse Stone television movies, does a fine job moving the Jesse Stone series forward. He continues to be the gold standard for mystery writers attempting to preserve the Parker brand. --Wes Lukowsky