TCWriter

I admit it; after reading Michael Brandman's continuation of the late Robert Parker's Jesse Stone novels, I decided I wasn't going to do this again. No more books by writers trying to write like famous dead writers. After only two pages, I realized Brandman can't do Parker.Then someone left me a copy of Ace Atkin's continuation of Parker's Spenser series, and I gave it a read.It is not like Parker at his best, but it's close enough. Atkins does a wonderful job parroting Parker, so while I'll never read another Jesse Stone novel, I probably would read another Spenser book.As for the book itself, it's very much Spenser; the dialog is witty and Atkins writes the characters with some care.In some ways, it's probably better than the last couple Parker-written Spenser novels, which had grown formulaic and flat. This offers some depth, and you don't necessarily know all the answers in the first ten pages. The publishers (Putnam) were probably ecstatic to read this manuscript; Atkins does an excellent job, and whether the series continues to sell will probably speak more to the reaction of Parker's fans to his death than the quality of Atkin's writing.