Robert B. Parker’s LOCKDOWN coming 2/9/27
It’s weird watching culture catch up with your obsessions. When I was a kid, I loved the trailers as much as the actual movies in the theaters. Sometimes more. They were filled with promise and hope, a little window into the future. And back then, the future was always a good thing.
Now trailers are celebrated and dissected even more than the movies they advertise. Maybe everyone is just as anxious for the future as I was in junior high. Maybe we’re all still a little bit excited to see what’s next.
I choose to believe that’s a good sign; that, despite all the portents of doom on the screen of everyone’s phone, we can still look forward to coming attractions. That the part of us that’s eternally young has hope for tomorrow, for something new and better.
That’s a fairly heavy thought for a Friday, so I’ll just tell you what’s coming next from me: my new novel in the Jesse Stone series, ROBERT B. PARKER’S LOCKDOWN, will be out February 9, 2027 from G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Here’s the cover and the synopsis:
Police Chief Jesse Stone faces off against a team of trained killers in this latest installment of Robert B. Parker’s beloved series.
Just before midnight, Jesse Stone is called to the local ER by his girlfriend, Dr. Rachel Lowenthal, to see the victim of a gunshot wound. Jesse thinks it’s more or less a routine crime — until he arrives at the hospital to find Wilson Cromartie, AKA Crow, one of the deadliest hit men alive, and Jesse’s sometime friend and ally.
Crow is tight-lipped about how he got the wound, but he has one warning for Jesse before he passes out on his way into surgery: “You better get ready. They’re coming.”
Jesse calls every available cop in Paradise because he knows Crow is always serious. Just as he gets back-up from his loyal officers Molly Crane and Luther “Suitcase” Simpson, the hospital is cut off by a group of armed men in black vehicles.
Over the next six hours, Jesse is forced to defend Crow and every patient in the hospital from a force of smart, highly trained killers — without knowing who they are or what they want. He’s trapped and outgunned. The killers think they’re dealing with just another small town cop. They think this is going to be easy.
Jesse is about to prove them wrong.
It is, of course, available for preorder now. If you buy a copy in advance, this helps tell the publisher there’s enough demand for more Jesse Stone, and they put more books in the stores as well.
I had a lot of fun with this one. It’s basically one long action scene, and I got to use Jesse’s old friend and former nemesis Crow. I hope you check it out.
Other Futures
I’ve also had a chance to see some other versions of the future, both on the page and in real life. We went to Singapore for Spring Break, which is both 17 hours away by plane and in another century altogether. It’s like a spacecraft landed near the equator and left a city behind.
The Supertree Grove in Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay. The Supertrees are manmade vertical gardens that serve as venting towers for the gardens’ cooling and air intake systems, host exotic plants, and collect rainwater and solar power.
WORLD’S EDGE by James Sallis
While I was there, I read WORLD’S EDGE, the last book by James Sallis, who was also the author of the classic crime novel DRIVE. Sallis was praised by every critic , an award-winning author of both fiction and non-fiction, and an icon to other iconic writers like Harlan Ellison, Dennis Lehane, and Sara Gran.
His last book is a novella told in stories of the near future, when the United States breaks up in a high-tech civil war and what happens after. His lines are quiet and plain until they’re not, ambushes and drone explosions hiding at the end of everyday description.
On the kitchen table, held in place by his favorite cup, he left a sheet of paper. Painstakingly glued to it, almost straight, were words he’d cut from computer printouts, just like kidnappers demanding ransom in the old movies he loved. No more, the note said. I’m sorry. No more.
Today we’re on track, tomorrow our lives go skittering off and we pick up the pace, sprinting hard not to be left behind.
The book is filled with small, devastating moments like that one. Pick a page at random and you’ll find one. It’s a meditation on where we are and where we are headed. It’s going to haunt me for a long time.
THE BREAKUP by Kurt Andersen
I was also lucky enough to get an advance copy of THE BREAKUP by Kurt Andersen. Andersen co-founded, along with Graydon Carter, the legendary Spy magazine, which gleefully roasted the golden calves of celebrity and fame before the internet made that everyone’s part-time job. He’s also the author of one of my favorite novels, TURN OF THE CENTURY, a book that was published in 1999 and yet somehow managed to predict everything from 24-7 reality TV to online stock trading to brain implant tech. It’s the story of Lizzie and George, a well-off couple living in New York, working in tech and media as those industries transform the world around them. I buy the used hardcovers whenever I find them in bookstores and give them away like I’m distributing Bibles.
Andersen returns to that world, which is not quite our own but not that far off either, for THE BREAKUP, which hits shelves August 18. It’s about another couple, Asher and Natalie, struggling as the world changes under their feet. (The husband is the nephew of Lizzie and George but you don’t need to read the earlier book as homework.) The bad news is, the marriage of red states and blue states has turned toxic, and there has been a national divorce. The question is whether Asher and Natalie will split as well, as they navigate the changes in the country and each other, with Natalie on the other side of the border for much of the book.
Natalie and Asher, at least, have a chance at reconciliation. The rest of America seems to be happier after the split, like those parents who actually manage to be polite and funny when they do the drop-off at McDonalds for custody weekends. That’s a much darker vision of the future than TURN OF THE CENTURY. I’m hoping this one isn’t as prescient.
FOLD CATASTROPHES by Peter Watts
I also got an ARC of FOLD CATASTROPHES, the next collection of short pieces by Peter Watts, one of the smartest writers working today. (One of the best perks of being an author: I get books before they hit shelves.) Watts, the author of BLINDSIGHT and ECHOPRAXIA, is also a marine biologist and the survivor of a nasty flesh-eating bacterial attack. He knows the ways in which our bodies can turn on us, and he explores how little we actually know even as he explores outer space and artificial intelligence. I always learn something from reading Watts, which is about the highest compliment I can possibly give. I take some comfort in the idea that even at the farthest reaches of the universe, we will still be out there, stumbling along, insatiably curious, endlessly chasing answers we will never find.
And now the fine print…
That’s all I’ve got this week. If you want more vacation pictures, you can follow me on Instagram. I get a commission from some book links if you buy through them. If you do not want to receive these emails anymore, just hit unsubscribe below. Comments or questions? Just reply to this email.
And as always, thank you for reading.
