I never get over being sort of bewildered and happy when I have a new book in the world. I’d like to be cooler about it. But it never stops being amazing to me that something I wrote is out there for people to read and buy and keep.

All of which is a long way of saying that ROBERT B. PARKER’S BIG SHOT is available everywhere now, in hardback, ebook, and audiobook. My latest attempt to follow in the footsteps of RBP has Jesse Stone up against a rich hedge fund manager who’s determined to show Jesse that he can buy anything, even the town of Paradise. And when he turns up missing with a giant pool of blood in his seaside mansion, Jesse finds himself the prime suspect.

Criminal Element has a review up already, and Janet Webb calls it a “tour de force” that will make you “race through the pages.” I think that’s the first time a book I’ve written has been called a “tour de force.” (I’ve heard “batshit crazy” before, but not “tour de force.” I am flattered by both, to be honest.)

And Steve Thomas at Best Thriller Books says, “Robert B. Parker’s Big Shot is a high-stakes thriller that proves Christopher Farnsworth has perfectly captured the voice and gritty personality of Jesse Stone… Ultimately, Big Shot is one of the strongest recent entries in the Jesse Stone series. It honors the legacy of Robert B. Parker by focusing on what makes Jesse great: his stubborn honesty and his refusal to back down, even when the odds are stacked against him.”

I’m thankful for the great reviews, and I hope you get a copy and enjoy it.

I’m going to be signing copies and talking about the book at a few bookstores as well.

If you can’t catch the live act, you can also hear me jabber entertainingly on the Five Compelling Questions podcast, where Shawn Reilly Simmons always does her best to make me sound smarter than I am.

Look, I know things are crazy out there right now. And it might seem frivolous to talk about books and bad guys when so much is going on in the real world.

But this is one reason I write: I put things down on the page to help them make sense. Salman Rushdie once said that writing “is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things —childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves— that go on slipping like sand, through our fingers.”

Hopefully, you find some entertainment or comfort in my work as well. I believe we can still find truth, and justice, and good guys in our stories. Maybe, if we all work hard enough, we can find them outside of fiction as well.

Thank you for reading, and the gift of your time and attention, even when the world seems like it’s one fire. I am truly grateful.