
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Coleman brings a bit of the hard-boiled style to Parker's Stone. The writing style and depth is better than Brandman's and Coleman definitely brings his own interpretation to the characters. Brandman was doing an imitation, a cover of the classics if you will. Coleman is more taking Parker's creation and doing an interpretation. He's not trying to imitate Parker or produce something that might fool someone into thinking it was Parker. Instead he's keep the themes and core melody, but adding elements that are more his own. Some people obviously don't like that; but I think it works. There are elements that are not quite right -- the main one being Stone's heavier drinking. I don't have a problem with Stone drinking more again, but I think Coleman might have provided some context for that and built towards. And while Coleman's Stone is not as witty nor does the dialogue have quite the same pop as Parker (who's could?!); Coleman does a good job of getting the essence of it right.
The story itself is more interesting and compelling than Brandman's novellas. This twice as long as Brandman's and so the story has time to develop and reach a conclusion. I like the fleshing out of some Stone's baseball background and how that ties into the present. That feels like a nice connection to Parker's writing as well.
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