Rating: 
Summary: Missing Spencer, Hawk, and Susan
Review: Jesse Stone is Parker's new male icon. He is a flawed but basically decent man; strong, smart and reserved.A Gary Cooper type figure.This is a narrative driven book, unlike the Spencer series. Less clever dialogue. The story is predictable at every level.The author may have a movie in mind. It reads like a script. About two hours will get you through the story. It holds you, but in the end the simplicity of the plot is disappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining... fast paced... a Change of scenery!
Review: Jesse Stone, not the perfect man Spenser is, & it a very interesting change of pace. I found this to be skillful complexly written as all Parkers books, nothing stinted in the new cast of this book. Some of them almost as scary & sexy as Hawk. I enjoyed the come-uppance of the villains as they discovered they had misjudged this "drunken ex-cop". May the Good Guys always WIN!
Rating: 
Summary: He is not Spenser but Parker's work still contains the magic
Review: Let's first get the obvious out of the way: This is not another Spencer book, but it does have the magical Parker touch to it. Jesse Stone is leaving Los Angeles to start life over as the Chief of Police in Paradise , Massachusetts. LA had become a nightmare for Jesse as the rigors of his job as a police officer took their toll. He became an alcoholic which eventually got him fired from LAPD and cost him his marriage. Paradise quickly proves to Jesse to be a false name. The town simmers with a white supremacist militia group led by an important official, the Chairman of the Board of Selectmen, Hasty Hathaway, who also has mob tie s. The volatile world soon explodes when Hasty's lover threatens to reveal everything unless the man marries her. Soon, it is High Noon in Paradise with Hasty and his horde of supporters Vs one lone law enforcement offici al. Though not a Spencer novel, fans of that series will enjoy NIGHT PASSAGE because of the wonderful characterizations. Jesse will remind readers of Spencer in many ways, but clearly he is his own man. The support cast also shows some of the elements from the Spencer series, but show indications of major differences; they will need more novels to fully evolve into their own personas. The story line has the usual brilliant Robert B. P arker touch and starts off as one of the author's best books. However, the tale fades a bit as Jesse seems to overcome everything too easily. Still a Parker novel is better than most books on the market today. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Parker tries someone other than Spenser
Review: Night Passage is Robert Parker's attempt to return to form after his Spenser character was beginning to look rather tired. He has introduced Jess Stone, who may or not be reintroduced in later novels. Stone has left California because of a drink problem. He is recruited to a rather odd town, ironically named Paradise. It is immediately clear that the town wants a malleable sherrif and that strange money-laundering activities are going on. Unfortunately for Paradise, Jesse Stone turns out to be no pushover. While trying to cope with his wrecked personal life, he digs deeper into the corrpuption of the town, which revolves mainly around the bank head, Hastings Hathaway. Unfortunately, nearly all the characters in Night Passage are stereotypes. Indeed, some are laughably so. My edition also has a very irritating font for the first line of each of the 75 chapters. It's that "pseudo-handwriting" font which inexperienced editors often use, but about which professional editors should know better. Notwithstanding this, the book is an easy read and is a definite improvement on Parker's recent Spenser attempts. Jesse Stone is a good charactr and will, I suspect, return. Oh, and there isn't any cooking in this book, thank god.
Rating:
Summary: Nice try, but the jury is still out.
Review: Night Passage is the first in a series starring Jesse Stone. Jesse is a Los Angeles homicide detective that was fired for drinking on the job. He has just received a divorce from a starlet and has been offered a job in Massachusetts as Police Chief. He isn't quite sure why they hired him, because he was drunk when he was interviewed, but he didn't really care. Mr. Parker writes dialogue in most of the book, but he does do that well. There is a lot going on in the book that may or may not be related and it is the story of taking the clues and putting the pieces together. This is not a whodunit. It is more about how they are caught. I am going to read the rest of this series, because I thoroughly enjoyed this one.
Rating:
Summary: Love to read Parker
Review: Night Passage is the first in a series starring Jesse Stone. Jesse is a Los Angeles homicide detective that was fired for drinking on the job. He has just received a divorce from a starlet and has been offered a job in Massachusetts as Police Chief. He isn't quite sure why they hired him, because he was drunk when he was interviewed, but he didn't really care. Mr. Parker writes dialogue in most of the book, but he does do that well. There is a lot going on in the book that may or may not be related and it is the story of taking the clues and putting the pieces together. This is not a whodunit. It is more about how they are caught. I am going to read the rest of this series, because I thoroughly enjoyed this one.
Rating:
Summary: A great idea but a few flaws
Review: Night Passage is the first in Robert B Parker's "Jesse Stone" series, set in the mythical town of Paradise, up near Lynne, Massachusetts. Jesse conveniently runs into just about every major character from the Spenser for Hire series during his adventures over the years.
In essence, Parker is getting back to his roots. At this point in time Spenser is getting far too old to keep detecting, a point that many, many readers have made with a grin. Stone is picking up the mantle, and returning to the hard liquor, hard edged attitude that Spenser had back when he was a pup.
You start with Jesse Stone, aged 34, born in Tucson Arizona, staring at the Santa Monica ocean and pondering how he quit the LAPD. Divorced, 6', 175 pounds, he was a point guard in high school and almost went professional in baseball, but for a career-ending injury. Oh yes, he was in the marines, too.
So he drives his Explorer cross country to the tiny town of Paradise, Massachusetts. The drive takes quite a bit of book to tell. When he gets there, to be their new police chief, he finds a mess. White Supremacists, money laundering, lots of sex. And all through it, you get soap opera scenes of Jesse and his ex-wife Jenn who can't quite live together but can't quite leave each other either.
The writing is classic Spenser style, although in 3rd person. You get both the good and the bad in that sense. I enjoy the wit and the quick paced action, but I really don't like the soap-opera long drawn out scenes where you have to hear for the 800th time how a couple loves each other but has issues with living together.
Also, a number of the actions of the characters make little sense, and seem like they were thrown in for plot reasons. The ending is very rushed and forced. I really like the idea of a new character to keep this universe going, but I hope that by trying to write three series at once, Parker isn't spreading himself a little thin.
Rating:
Summary: Not Spenser, but still Parker -- and still every bit as good
Review: OK, I admit it. I wouldn't buy this book for a while after it came out. How could Robert B. Parker do this to me, when I've loved Spenser all these years? Don't fix it if it ain't broke, Bob, I thought. Inevitably, though, I got to the point where I had nothing to read. So I bought "Night Passage". Then I let it sit around for a few days. I didn't want to read it. I was prepared to be bored, disappointed, and lonesome for Spenser and Susan Shapiro. Finally, I picked it up...and stayed up until 4:00 in the morning to finish it. This book is every bit as good as the Spenser books, and quite different from them in scene and general tone. Jesse Stone, newly divorced and dealing with it badly, is forced to resign from the LAPD for drinking on the job. He takes a new job as chief of police in a small Massachusetts town called Paradise, only to discover that the town has hired him because they want a police chief who won't police certain things. The intricate plot is very believable, as are Jesse and the other major characters. Anyone who knows small towns will also recognize the accuracy of Parker's picture of small-town politics. The best part? The characters. I found myself wanting to call up Jesse Stone and talk to him for a while -- and almost believing that I could. It's terrific Parker. Write more, Bob, and I'm sorry I doubted you.
Rating: 
Summary: Good yarn, not enough action, dull dialog, no characters.
Review: Parker has obviously tired of Spenser, his super hero detective of many years. Now we have Jesse Stone, flawed, silent, alone. To his credit he is tough, honest, decisive. What made Parker a success was his lively, witty characters, brought home by great dialog. This book has no memorable dialog and all the characters are thin. The protagonist, Jesse Stone, needs some development to make him more interesting. The story line is as good as Parker's previous work, but he'll have to grow Stone considerably, beef up some other characters, to keep me coming back every year as I did for his Spenser novels.
Rating:
Summary: Night passage ends up right back in Spenser's neighborhood
Review: Parker is good at what he does, but this isn't all that different from Spenser. Same neighborhood and recurring characters from Hawk's neighborhood. He even takes up with a Lady lawyer indistinguishable from Ms.Fiore. By book 2 he'll probably be cooking. Think of it as Spenser with a real job; or, Spenser in the witness protection program
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