Rating: 
Summary: Don't take that next drink, Jesse!
Review: Jesse Stone is a cop - and a boozer. Don't call him an alcoholic because he doesn't admit it to himself. And he's certainly not going to go to AA meetings. The mystery is so-so. Parker certainly has done better, and I expect he will again. What I enjoyed, however, was Jesse Stone's struggle with his own weakness and his slow but steady progress toward redemption. The rapid-fire dialogue sometimes plays a bit thin - maybe I've seen it too often in the Spencer novels. It makes for fast reading, but after a while it becomes an affectation, rather than an interesting way to show characters in action. Certainly this isn't the best Parker novel ever published, perhaps it might even be a bit below average, but even a less-than-average Parker is better than 99% of the rest of what's out there. Certainly worth an afternoon in the recliner with a NON-alcoholic beverage on the side table.
Rating:
Summary: Good but quick read
Review: I have read all of Robert Parkers books and these latest ones are not his best, but still Death In Paradise kept my attention and I read it in one day. I will continue to by Parkers books but I do wish he would put a little more into them.
Rating:
Summary: Jesse Stone returns
Review: Robert B. Parker has been writing for a long time, and there are critics everywhere. As he's progressed, his writing has gotten more and more spare, and careful. It's to the point now where he almost doesn't write the book, and you almost don't read it. It sort of flows past you, and only the characters and the action are important. Interesting phenomenon.This time around, Jesse Stone's weekly softball game is interrupted by the discovery of a dead girl floating in a nearby lake. Stone investigates, and eventually discovers who she is and why she's there. Meanwhile there's a domestic disturbance call (a wife being beaten) that slowly escalates to something worse. The problem with the book, as much as there is one, is that neither of these plots is that interesting, so you have to pay attention to the characters. They at least are diverting, and I did have some fun watching Jesse do his thing. Neither bad guy is that smart, though. I suppose much of the time that's the way it is in real life. All in all, a decent entry into Parker's library, but not his best book.
Rating: 
Summary: Death in Paradise
Review: The regular evening game of the Paradise Men's Softball League is interrupted when the body of a young woman floats to the surface of the adjacent lake. Since no one can identify the shooting victim, and no one answering to her general description has been reported missing, Police Chief Jesse Stone (Trouble in Paradise, 1998, etc.) relies on routine inquiries and a telltale class ring to identify her as Elinor (Billie) Bishop, universally labeled the "town pump" by her fellow high-school students. Billie's reputation is so dire, in fact, that her own parents deny she's their daughter. The only link Jesse can find for Billie is to the shelter for runaways that Sister Mary John runs in Jamaica Plains. But that link leads in turn to Alan Garner, whose telephone Billie had given as a forwarding number when she left the shelter, and to Garner's boss Gino Fish, the well-connected gay Boston mobster Parker's major-league sleuth Spenser (Potshot, p. 209, etc.) has tangled with now and again. All Jesse has to do is follow the links-if he can tear himself away from the bottle, his ex-wife Jenn, his current love interest Lilly Summers, and the rest of Paradise's troubled citizens for long enough. Parker regulars will find the same extraordinary stillness-as if every scene were still another frozen tableau-that marks the more famous Spenser novels. What they won't find this time is enough action, detection, or real mystery to keep a self-respecting short story from starving to death. Author tour
Rating: 
Summary: This is a Play, Not A Book!
Review: Though I've been a fan of Robert Parker in the past, I don't like the direction he's going in his more recent books. Go back and look at his early stuff and then reconsider "Death in Paradise." This isn't a book. It's a play. It's page after page of dialogue. No chapter is longer than four pages (calling James Patterson). The formula is the same. One paragraph of text at the beginning of each chapter, followed by four pages of dialogue. how long did it take Mr. Parker to write this -- maybe a week? Perhaps another week to rewrite? And for this he gets paid? Go figure.
Rating:
Summary: Death in Paradise
Review: "Death in Paradise" is the third novel in the Jesse Stone series by Robert B. Parker, who is better known for his Spenser novels. The remains of a teenage girl are found in a Paradise lake. The girl had been shot and dumped in the lake. Paradise police chief Jesse Stone discovers that the girl is Billie Bishop, and learns that she and other runaway girls seem to have ties with a Boston mob boss. Quite a bit of time is also devoted to Jesse's relationship with his ex-wife, Jenn, who is a weatherperson for a Boston TV station. "Death in Paradise" is more of a straight mystery than either of the first two Jesse Stone novels. I enjoyed reading "Death in Paradise", and look forward to more Jesse Stone novels in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Not his Best~Not his Worst Either
Review: I am a great fan of Robert Parker and think he writes wonderful mysteries. This is no exception. The mystery involved is wonderful and will have you guessing all the way throught the book. I also had to admire his treatment of alcohlism in this book. While most books make drinking...even to excess... a virtue, Parker attacks the subject straight on and deals with the demons of the disease well enough to make me wonder if he has been down the road himself. The one downfall to this book is Jesse Stones inability to speak in more than 2 or 3 word sentances, much like Spenser. In fact, almost every time Stone speaks, my mind conjured up Spenser. Parker needs to work on removing himself from Spenser while writing his other works.
Rating:
Summary: Just OK
Review: This book starts out pretty good but turns out to be very predictable. It also jumps around alot - the chapters being one or two pages mostly doesn't help in my opinion.
Rating:
Summary: Another Spenser, Another Show....
Review: You have to admire Robert B. Parker's loyalty to one kind of character. He has immortalized the intelligent, poetry-quoting, smart-mouthed, but oh-so-moral, P.I. in the Spenser series, and he has extended that character to a female P.I. in the Sunny Randall books, and to a younger, more fashionable (if alcoholism isn't stylish and trendy, I don't know what is) Chief of Police in the Jesse Stone series. Parker spends a lot of time, in all of these books, defining what is and is not a 'good man.' And his answers are always the same. So now we have Jesse Stone, faced with the murder of a young prostitute (and of course she was a prostitute, all young women in trouble in Parker books are prostitutes - does that bother anyone else to the point of boycott?); faced with his own weakness whenever he is around his ex-wife (he drinks when he's with her, but not when he's on a date with a new lady; if psychology were really this black and white we would all be sane); and faced with a wife-beater whose victim will not press charges. What it all boils down to, just as it does in most of Parker's books, is the complexity of male/female relationships, and the difficulty of achieving something like balance. This theme is a noble one, and Parker has handled it well in some of the Spenser books. But in the end, apparently, everything is quite simple: Women need protection. Men need to be strong, capable, moral, and careful. And, at least in this installment of the set, life is one big game of baseball (a game, by the way, that women can't possibly understand), where you work with a team but your individual acheivement is instantly rewarded or instantly punished. As a fan, I really worry about Robert sometimes. Maybe he needs some new friends. Guess what? Some women like baseball. Hardly any of us are prostitutes. And many of us don't need a man's protection at all, although we would love to know someone like Spenser all the same. You gotta admire Parker's determination to stick with this story line. And you have to admire his ability to sell this same show to the public, book after book, year after year. Check this out of the library and read it and sigh; maybe if we stop buying his books, this fine, fine writer will have to think of something else to write.
Rating:
Summary: MURDER IN A SMALLTOWN
Review: ... YOU CAN PUT THIS ONE DOWN BUT YOU'LL PICK IT UP AGAIN BECAUSE THE INTEREST IN SOLVING THE CRIME IS THERE. THE MOST TRAGIC PART OF THE STORY MAY BE THE REACTION OF THE GIRL'S FAMILY. THERE IS DEEP MEANING THRU THE BOOK IF YOU STOP TO CONSIDER WHAT IS GOING ON AND DON'T JUST SKIM OVER THE PLOT. TAKE THE TIME TO THINK ABOUT TODAY'S FAMILY AND THE PROBLEMS OF AMERICA TODAY AS THE NEW CULTURAL VALUES EMERGE.
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