Rating: 
Summary: Hey, let's welcome Jesse Stone!
Review: It does look like this is a good time for Robert B. Parker to come up with a new character, and judging from this first book, Jesse Stone could be a winner. He's certainly different from Spenser. While he shows some wit, he's of a darker and brooding nature, having messed up his professional and personal lives by hitting the bottle too heavily. In fact, he even goes to a job interview after drinking and surprisingly gets hired as police chief in Paradise, Mass. He figures that he was hired in spite of his condition when the truth is he was hired because of his drinking...he appeared to be far easier managed than he turned out to be.Obviously, Parker intends to have the two series interrelate to a degree. Vinnie Morris and Gino Fish appear in the story, although interestingly, they never interrelate with Stone. Somehow, I suspect that might change in future novels. Like the Spenser novels, this is a fast and easy read. It's not quite as much a fun read maybe, but what the hey, it's good and satisfying light reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Contriving the anti-Spenser
Review: "Death In Paradise", by Richard B. Parker. Audio version (Five tapes) read by Robert Forester. New Millennium Audio, Beverly Hills, CA. In short, staccato bursts of dialogue, Robert B. Parker tells the story of Chief of Police, Jesse Stone, in the small town of Paradise, north of Boston, Massachusetts. Chief Stone had lost his police job in Los Angeles, lost his first wife and ended up in the small town of Paradise. His experience in Minor League Baseball makes the Chief a star in the local softball league, and that's where the story begins. The softball team's reverie after the early evening game is broken by the discovery of badly decomposed body floating in the lake. The story then grows around Chief Stone's development of his tiny police force by instructing them, with on-the-job training, in big city police tactics. The dead girl's family has disowned her; the girl had run away, and become part of a sex for pay group. Stone shows his police officers how to act on routine (and boring) stakeouts and finally, he tracks down the murderer. Throughout all of this, the author has interspersed tales of Stone's alcoholism, failure at married life and regrets with the injury that cost him a promising baseball career. About three-quarters of the way through, you begin suspecting the identity of the killer, but these side issues in the life of Chief Stone continue to make the book interesting. This book appears to be better if it is read aloud. The audio version, read by Robert Forester, flowed naturally and rapidly. Everything seemed to fit together as the book was read. It certainly helped me in the traffic of I-495, around Boston. Speaking of Boston, please let the reader know that the pronunciation of Copely Square is "COP-lee", not the "Cope -lee" used in this presentation.
Rating: 
Summary: Like an Oriental painting...
Review: ...P>But I think what we have in this novel is pure craftsmanship, the kind where the artist paints the leaf and the twig and leaves the tree and the landscape to the viewer's imagination. Jesse Stone doesn't NEED to say any more than he does, nor do any of the other characters in the book. And the plot is really quite complicated and intricate, with all lines coming together by the last page...as well as the final hint of more to come and life and intrigue resuming even after we have put the book down. Parker, you get better with every novel. Reader, don't be decieved. This is one really well written book!
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.
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