Robert B. Parker's Damned if You Do by Michael Brandman

Jesse Stone was sprawled out on the back porch love seat, having finished the last of his coffee, waiting for the caffeine to kick in.

Next paragraph is a weather report. Weather hooks only idiots...and birds.

His cell phone rang, and he reached over and picked it up.

"We've got a body Jesse. Surf and Sand motel. It's bad"

We've got a body and a crime, though for a mystery/crime novel that is not novel, but at least this is all on the very first page. I like this technique. There are many mystery novels that begin at the crime scene. As soon as page two, we get a description of the crime scene, but it doesn't seem as bad to me as it did to whoever said: It's bad. I guess I'm just jaded when it comes to fictional crimes.

The first line fails to deliver anything of importance, but the writer quickly comes to a murder that is the stuff crime novels are made of.

Verdict: Pass (barely)

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht