I had a little trouble finishing this on time, and hope it’s mostly coherent and typo-free. Just to be on the safe side, let me give you a quick synopsis of what follows: The Watchman is great stuff. You should go buy it now. Then come back and read what I have to say.
At some point, later, I’ll have to have a word with myself about how it got to this, but sometimes your hand is forced. There’re goodies, baddies, your side, their side. Winners get to go home, losers get dead.
And I’ve got a family I need to get back to.
What’s The Watchman About?
Ben’s benefactor, protector, ally, and almost-father-figure, William Grosvenor comes to him for a favor: go to New York and get an envelope for me. Ben can’t know what’s in the envelope, he just needs to bring it back. Grosvenor throws in an obscene payday to sweeten the deal.
Ben really doesn’t want to do this—he wants to stay at home with Carolyn and the kids. But it’s not the kind of money you can walk away from—especially with three kids to provide for—and that’s assuming Ben’s sense of duty wouldn’t oblige him to answer Grosvenor’s request.
Almost everything you can think of going wrong once he had the envelope goes wrong. Ben and his American contact find themselves on the run, they’re just not sure who from, they only know they have guns and aren’t afraid to use them. But soon, Ben’s able to summarize things like this:
This is turning into something preposterously big. The FBI, the CIA, the Secret Service, maybe Russia and perhaps my own countrymen back home – all wanting the contents of one little envelope.
Ben neglected to mention a New York Crime Family in his list, which is odd, as he says this to their head (but maybe he assumes she’s aware that she’s one of those making the situation preposterously big).
Ben and the American stay one step ahead of all these groups (by the skin of their teeth) all over an envelope they don’t understand the significance of. They move from NYC quickly to another state, and then another…and well, you get the idea. The chase is lethal, demanding, and quite likely full of treachery.
Something New in Parker’s Arsenal
In last year’s Far from the Tree, Parker used multiple perspectives quite effectively. But in the Ben Bracken series, it’s all been Ben’s first-person point of view up until this point. In The Watchman, he sprinkles in some chapters in the third-person. These chapters follow a figure called Sinclair, and it’s a long time before we have any idea about the connection between the envelope and Sinclair. But you know that he’s important right away.
It’s always risky (I think) when an author starts putting third-person chapters in a first-person narrator’s book. Parker’s use is effective, you want to know more about Sinclair—you want to understand what he’s up to and to learn more about him in general, with the curiosity about how he ties into the envelope coming in third place to the others. All three items are covered in these pages, thankfully, leaving no lingering questions.
Ben in the U.S.A.
My smile broadens irrepressibly. There’s something about this country that, while I can’t quite put my finger on it, I really enjoy. The expanse maybe. The freedom of choice. The sensation that you can have it all. No wonder immigrants have flocked to it in their droves, drunk on the idea of streets paved with gold.
Equally entertaining—and far less stressful than the rest of the book—is watching Ben’s reactions to America. He has great comments about NYC, our roads, cars, food, politics, and so on.
Ben’s been around a bit, he’s seen things, and can come across as fairly jaded sometimes. It takes a lot to impress him. Until he enters the U.S. for the first time, and then almost all of that is stripped away.
One of my favorite examples is his reaction to the idea of fried gator on a menu—both before and after ordering it—it’s just great. I wish we could read more of Ben reacting to American restaurant fare.
Actually, that’s a great idea for a short story—Ben uses some of the money he makes in this novel to bring Carolyn and the kids on an American vacation. There’s no death, no fights, no danger—just them touring a few states and eating strange things.
The Thing I Cannot Talk About
For a while, you start to wonder if the envelope is the equivalent of Marsellus Wallace’s briefcase—inside it is something that everyone wants, but no one will tell you what it is. Thankfully, that ends at some point and we get to look into it.
The contents of the envelope—and here’s where I have to be careful what I say—indicate something that’s a frequent idea in Fiction—Fiction of various genres, not just Crime Fiction. I hate it. Really. It’s over-used. Usually not used well and/or interestingly. I also usually find it fairly distasteful, yet dull. I’ve complained about it elsewhere on this blog in less-spoilery circumstances. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve seen it used well or interestingly—and would still have a few phalanges to spare.
That said? In The Watchman, Rob Parker pulls it off. I bought it. I was curious. I got over my initial groan once and enjoyed it. I wish I could say more, but I really can’t. So let me just say that for me, Rob Parker pulled off a feat here that few have, and should be applauded for it.
So, what did I think about The Watchman?
I started this week talking about how much of an improvement the fourth book in this series was over the others. This book is similarly an improvement over the fourth. It was just great.
For those who might care, this novel features two of the most disgusting deaths I can think of. I don’t mean to put anyone off from reading this—just know that there are two or three paragraphs you may want to skim and not think too hard about. Thomas Harris and M. W. Craven need to work a little harder to assert their dominance in the area.
There’s a reveal towards the end, that I sincerely hope wasn’t supposed to be shocking, because I think Parker pretty well telegraphed it from the opening chapters of the book. It makes sense that it shakes the characters in the novel, but no one who reads the book should be surprised (although I’m glad Parker revealed this later in the book, rather than spelling it out in a descriptive passage toward the top of the book.
Do you need to have read the previous four novels to appreciate this one? Nope. It can be read as a stand-alone, but it helps if you have read them so you understand what drives Ben—what keeps him moving forward and helps him get through the discouraging, political, or dangerous parts of his job. All that will come through if this is your first exposure to Ben, but not quite as clearly.
Parker’s outdone himself here—it’s tense, twisty, and compelling. Even when dealing with things that frequently make it hard for me to finish a book, Parker’s writing and pacing kept me turning the pages. In the end, The Watchman is going down as one of my favorite thrillers of 2021. Do yourselves a favor and pick it up.
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