Night Passage

Robert B. Parker

I received this book as a gift from a friend. My first exposure to the character Jesse Stone was through the Tom Selleck movie "Stone Cold". I had liked the movie, recommended it to this same friend, and then my friend read the books, who then in turn sent me a copy of the first two books. Night Passage is no longer in print and I'm glad to say the copy I have is a hard cover, a very nice addition to my collection.

The novel is about Jesse Stone and nothing more. The characters, the scenes, the plot--as much as it is-- is only there to show us the character of Stone. Without him, the novel would be nothing more then the lesser pieces it is. More a profile then a mystery, Night Passage can be considered an opening chapter on Stone, with the intention of more chapters to come--which happened as more stories were written. I will get to them as I read them.

Night Passage though is a quick read, no more then a few hours. Surprisingly, as I came away from it I was left wanting more. More of the character and more of a plot. I was sorely disappointed with the central conflict and felt Stone was undeserving of it. He was too much character for the situation he was put into and even then, the last twenty pages felt like they were a cop out--a kind of super fast resolution which came all too easily.

Overall, Night Passage reads more like an outline to a good story then a good story by itself. This in no way detracts from the outline, and from the potential of the central character, but overall I was left wanting--and I do not want that with a novel, especially from Parker whom I enjoy as a writer.

The Killers

So I read the Ernest Hemingway story, The Killers, and it was everything a noir story should be. Humor, anger, angst, and in the end it leaves you wondering how it will end. I don't think it's more than three thousand words either. A nice twenty minute read.

Rolling along from that read I picked up the movie and was impressed with the first fifteen minutes--the amount of time it took to play out Hemingway's story. The movie proceeded to fill out the characters back stories and where they went after the short story had finished.

Beyond the first fifteen minutes, the movie lost its spark. The Hemingway dialog, taunt action, and brevity was gone. In its place was standard Hollywood plot, dialog, and acting. The noir wasn't noir in this movie at all.

Ava, ah, Ava. A beauty to behold, a creature worth every second on the screen. Too bad she was so underused.

Overall I was disappointed by the movie.

Security

Sometimes those aimless masses of bodies careening off one another in the endless streets of New York or Troy, Montana get things right. Somewhere, someplace, some time, there's a something to be said for the masses; some times they get things right. Most times they don't, or worse, they forget. This time around I have to give it to them though. They remembered Peter Gabriel's Security. His fourth album, it's labeled as a "full digital recording". I downloaded the entire album via Yahoo music and the recordings were posted at 192k. After listening to it twice on a pair of Sony headphones in a quiet room, I am reminded of the first time I was exposed to the Rhythm of The Heat. The song made me tear up and even to this day, it still does.
The album is a frantic piece of chaos splashed together with intense vocals and lackadaisical meanderings which can not hide their military strike perfection. The music ebbs and flows, taking the listener on a trip which never relaxes, but lightens up however momentarily to give relief when absolutely needed. It's not a perfect listen. Sometimes the music is overwhelming, sometimes overly long and expressive, however Gabriel was well aware of the power of his voice and his intelligence when he wrote this album, and it's used to full affect. A sophisticated album, it deserves a listen at least once a year, as reminder that not all of the music made in the world is crap.