Reed Farrel Coleman, celebrated purveyor of hard-boiled fiction, has a solid reputation, chiseled public profile and formidable resumé: nearly two dozen books, three Edgar Award nominations, numerous honors from his fellow mystery writers, a recently concluded Moe Prager series and an upcoming Gus Murphy series (ex- Suffolk County cop-turned-private eye). But when Putnam Books asked the longtime habitue of Lake Grove to slip into another writer’s moccasins and take them for a spin around the crime scene, he was up for the challenge: With “Robert B. Parker’s Blind Spot” (Putnam, $26.95), Coleman takes on the late mystery legend’s Jesse Stone — East Cost police chief, ex-LAPD cop, onetime major league hopeful — in a tale of mobsters, murders and unsavory memories. It’s the kind of book you race through, maybe in a matter of hours. “That’s about how long it took me to write it,” Coleman cracked, not seriously.
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