Robert B. Parker's Fool Me Twice (A Jesse Stone Novel)
When a movie crew comes to Paradise, Massachusetts, it’s a boon to the local economy but a major headache for Police Chief Jesse Stone and his understaffed department. And that’s if everything goes well. But the star of the movie, Marisol Hinton, is terrified that her estranged and meth-addicted husband will try to harm her. Since the Paradise PD can’t provide around-the-clock protection, Jesse arranges to have Crow, an old friend and professional tough guy, at Hinton’s side. When he’s not babysitting show-biz types, Jesse attempts to counsel a young, privileged teenage girl with potentially crippling authority issues. And there’s also the seemingly mundane matter of curiously increasing Paradise water bills. Brandman, in his second go-round as the caretaker of the late Parker’s Stone franchise, does solid job here (much better than in his earlier Robert B. Parker’s Killing the Blues (2011)). He nails Parker’s compressionist prose this time and isn’t quite as predictable in his plotting as the master had become. Parker’s protagonists frequently offered tough love to wayward youngsters, but this time there’s a little edge to the proceedings, as the water-department scandal adds a genuinely clever wrinkle. As for the stalker and the movie star? Let’s just say tough guys gotta do what tough guys gotta do. --Wes Lukowsky