Blood Feud by Mike Lupica

Mike Lupica is tapped by the Robert B. Parker estate to extend the story of Parker’s Sunny Randall character.  Sunny has a complicated relationship with her ex-husband Richie Burke whose father is local mobster Dominick Burke.  While Sunny is not interested in marriage she finds herself renewing her relationship with her ex after his recent second divorce.  Richie tries to carefully steer clear of his family’s business but occasionally gets pulled in.  One night he is shot but apparently intentionally not killed, an obvious mob maneuver.  Sunny, a licensed private investigator charges to the rescue even though Richie’s family warns her to stay away.  She confronts all the competing crime families to stir the pot and more members of Richie’s family are victimized… an uncle is murdered.  But Sunny’s pride and tenacity can’t let it go.  Someone has to pay for dismantling her ex’s family.

Mike Lupica is a renowned sports writer and gifted author of sports books for young adults.  But he must be bored.  Recently, I’ve seen him weighing in on political talk shows and now he is writing mystery novels for mature adults.  He does a competent job of following Robert B. Parker’s style.  The plot is simple and linear, the lead character is tough, tenacious, and lives by a code, and the dialogue is unsophisticated, coarse, and straight forward.  So, he does well to revere Robert B. Parker.  But why does Robert B. Parker need this type of reverence?  I guess I prefer to remember him for his own original works and not confuse him with these more modern attempts to imitate him.  It’s like seeing the movie version of one of your favorite author’s books and being disappointed by the actor playing the lead character.  The author’s future books are never quite the same.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced look.