Also finished The Rare Coin Score by Richard Stark, the nom de plume of Donald E. Westlake.

The Rare Coin Score is one in a series of books about Parker, a cold, cool thief who does whatever it takes to get the job done — and who isn’t shy about killing people who get in his way.

I was really excited to read this book because this is sort of a turning point in the series. Throughout the books, Parker has had no emotionally attachments to anyone — not even to his wife who betrayed him before she killed herself. But this is the book where he hooks up with Claire, his main squeeze throughout the rest of the series.

The book follows the same pattern as the other Parker novels. Parker gets together with a crew of thieves, this time to rob a coin convention. They plan the job, go in to execute it, and things get messed up along the way — which necessitates Parker killing a couple of people.

But the scenes with Claire were what really interested me. Parker is attracted to Claire, and he hooks up with her partly to keep her in line so she’ll keep one of the other crew members in line. Yet, he does feel something for her, even if it’s only a little spark of something. At one point, Parker actually contemplates killing her, and the only real reason they go off into the sunset together is that Claire fits in with Parker’s world — not the other way around. Which is completely in keeping with his character. You can’t help but root for Parker, even if he is a cold-hearted bastard.

So, thumbs up.

Finished High Profile by Robert B. Parker. It’s his latest Jesse Stone novel.

Jesse is an alcoholic police chief who lives in a small Massachusetts town called Paradise. This time out, he’s got to solve the murders of a national radio host and his pregnant girlfriend. But really, the mystery takes a back seat to Jesse’s struggles with booze and his obsession with his ex-wife, Jenn, who claims that she was raped and is being stalked by the guy who did it. The story gets even more twisted when Jesse asks Sunny Randall, his current squeeze, to protect Jenn from her supposed stalker. (Sunny is a Boston, female P.I. who stars in another one of Parker’s series.)

I always enjoy Parker’s books and his simplistic style. If you want to know how to do good dialogue and minimal description, Parker is your man.

But this one had me shaking my head. Because the Jesse-Jenn relationship just doesn’t ring true for me. Jesse is a smart, attractive, funny guy. Sure, he has a problem with alcohol, but really, his main problem is Jenn — the fact that he loves her and can’t let her go.

Jenn is no prize. She’s a serial cheater, who sleeps with men to help her career (she’s gone from TV weather girl to reporter over the last few books). Whenever things aren’t going her way, she calls in Jesse to come and fix them, like this time with her stalker. I just don’t see why Jesse would keep on loving her. He’s even gone to a shrink to help him figure things out (another one of Parker’s signatures), and he still can’t get Jenn out of his system.

I’d had such high hopes for this after the last Sunny Randall novel, Blue Screen, where she and Jesse hook up. I thought in High Profile, they’d both move forward together. And that it would be interesting to read about the same relationship in two different series from the POV of two different people. But no, Jesse and Sunny both devolve into thinking about their exes, so much so that they decide to call it quits. (Obsessive love is another one of Parker’s major themes.)

Sorry, Robert, but I have to give this one a thumbs down for not moving forward with your characters. Here’s hoping you go back to Jesse and Sunny in the future.

What about you? What have you read lately? Inquiring minds want to know …