I got caught up in A Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories when I was just a child. Many, many times, in my imagination, I joined Mr. Holmes' in his London apartment as he sat musing over the details of the latest crime wave in London.
When I was a teenager, every weekend, the Untouchables kept me glued in front of the television with my grandmother rooting Robert Stack and his mighty men on in their determined fight to defend "truth, justice, and the American way."
Now that I am a little older and wiser (???!!!), I prefer those stories whose characters, just like you and me, have both strengths and weaknesses, constantly make mistakes, get hurt or hurt other people physically, emotionally, or spiritually, and either accepts responsibility for what has happened or blames others for the pain (usually in any relatinship both parties have played some role in the joys and pains experienced)they feel.
Police Chief Jesse Stone, in Robert B. Parker's book is that kind of hero. Here is a picture of Tom Selleck, who has appeared in several television miniseries as my hero, Jesse Stone
In Stranger in Paradise (2008) the Chief finds himself in a very tough situation, trying to keep teenager, Amber Francisco, alive. Amber does not trust him and is determined to do the exact opposite of what he wants.
When the shooting starts, Jesse and his former wife, Jenne Stone, and Amber find themselves right in the middle, caught between gang members on one side, the Mafia on the other, with a professional assassin, Wilson "Crow" Crowmartie (the Stranger in Paradise), now an ally they must depend on. The chief, in a heated exchange with his former wife admits that, he may be "jumping off the cliff for maybe nothing!!!"
I found this cliff hanger at the Martin King Library in Tacoma...
Enjoy author Robert Parker's comments about his career and the Chief...
4 comments:
Joseph I got turned on to mysteries as a young girl reading Nancy Drew! For TV watching I love the BBC/PBS mysteries and even received some Agatha Christie DVDs for Christmas.
I like mysteries enough that I am trying to track my earliest ancestors to come to the New World. Part of my nose for news I guess, even if the news is 400 years old. :-)
Stephanie
I like that nose for news phrase...and part of what is going on with me is working with the big questions, why am I on this planet, what steps do I need to be happy, and how do I connect with other people and other living things...
and, the big one, why do I have to die
I used to sit in the adult section of the library reading Perry Mason mysteries because I wasn't "old enough" to check them out. Crazy library people.
I still love a good mystery. (Anyone else track two episodes of "Law and Order" at the same time with a trigger finger on the remote?)
I got caught in the Raymond Burr thing... playing a villain in Rear Window, busting folks in Perry Mason, and cleaning the crooks' clocks in Ironside...
My only library experience was working in the Seattle Public Library as a teenager, failing to follow up on the department director's instructions about watering her lawn when she was on vacation, and getting fired when she got back and found her green lawns a very dead brown...
LIBRARY EXPERIENCES, Shannon, too deep for me
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