Night Passage
(Libby/OverDrive eBook, Kindle)

Jesse Stone's career as an LAPD homicide detective is over, as is his marriage, thanks largely to booze. The good news is that Paradise, Massachusetts, needs a police chief. What Stone doesn't know is that city father Hasty Hathaway and acting chief Lou Burke are looking for a pushover to put in charge, and they figure a lush might do nicely. They pick the wrong lush. Stone drinks too much, but he doesn't push easily. Soon he has tangled with Paradise's leading thug, Jo Jo Genest, and is becoming curious about the local militia outfit, to which most of the town's leading citizens belong. The new chief's suspicions about the town intensify when he learns that his predecessor has been murdered in remote Wyoming. As Stone's first major case plays out, he balances still-considerable feelings for his ex-wife against the nascent affair he's having with a local lawyer. The new series by the creator of the hugely successful Spenser books has a great deal going for it: an empathetic, painfully flawed protagonist; an atmospheric small-town setting rife with corruption; and a whole new set of fascinating secondary characters. Parker is a true craftsman, and he's also extremely versatile, as he's proved in the past with his mainstream fiction and with his little-known classic, Wilderness (1979), and as he now proves again with this fine new series. (Reviewed July 1997)0399143041Wes Lukowsky

Great series characters can wind up tyrannizing their creators, who often seek relief in secondary series heroes. But Professor Challenger didn't save Conan Doyle from Holmes, Tiger Mann never put the kibosh on Spillane's Mike Hammer‘and Jessie Stone, though a finely wrought protagonist, won't keep Parker's fans from clamoring for ever more Spenser stories. Parker writes of Stone, an alcoholic cop booted out of L.A. Homicide only to be offered a job as police chief of a small Massachusetts town, in the third person, and his plotting suffers from the resultant multiple viewpoints. With Parker playing nearly all his cards face-up, there's little mystery and no suspense as Jesse uncovers, then foils, a murderous conspiracy on the part of a town official and his white-power militia. Also, many of the supporting characters‘the official, his bully of a sidekick, a couple of mobsters and a burned-out teen whom Jesse befriends‘will seem, though crisply carved, too familiar to Spenser devotees. And so will Jesse, for although alluringly moody and silent, he is, like Spenser, a tough man of honor who gets the job done. What's less predictable here are the complex, expertly shaded relationships, especially romantic, as Jesse flails and fails at loving both his ex-wife and his new girlfriend. The most powerful romance here, though, is between Parker and the written word. He has employed the third person before, most notably in Wilderness and the cop saga All Our Yesterdays. Still, his doing so is sufficiently rare that it is exceedingly satisfying to watch this prose master lay down his cool, clean lines from outside someone's skin. 125,000 first printing. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

The creator of the famed Spenser novels introduces a new detective series. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

After 24 Spenser titles (Small Vices, p. 90, etc.), Parker branches out with this tale of Jesse Stone, who's eased out of LAPD Homicide by his divorce-driven drinking, then hired by the sharp town fathers of Paradise, Mass., to replace Chief Tom Carson, who found out a little too much about Paradise. And there's lots to find out, because Board of Selectmen chair Hasty Hathaway--whose credentials also include heading Freedom's Horsemen, the local Aryan supremacist militia--is in bed with organized crime guys from Boston. Hasty's also in bed with Tammy Portugal (though you can hardly blame him: Mrs. Hasty is getting nasty with everybody in town but him); and when Tammy threatens to go public with their affair unless Hasty makes an honest woman of her, the stage is set for a no-holds-barred confrontation between Hasty, his crime connections (especially his fix-it man, body-builder Jo Jo Genest), his crooked cops, and Freedom's Horsemen (on one side) and taciturn loner Jesse (on the other). Longtime Spenser fans, who have been enjoying the clipped phone dialogue between Jesse and his ex, will be smacking their lips. But then, suddenly, everything's too easy. Jesse gets his drinking under control and makes key friends in Paradise. His force closes ranks behind him. The big-time mobsters get busy fighting among themselves. Jo Jo crumbles. Freedom's Horsemen implode. Don't even ask about Hasty. You can always rely on Parker for some great talk and great scenes. But you'll have to wait for later entries in this new series for a great story.

Jesse Stone's career as an LAPD homicide detective is over, as is his marriage, thanks largely to booze. The good news is that Paradise, Massachusetts, needs a police chief. What Stone doesn't know is that city father Hasty Hathaway and acting chief Lou Burke are looking for a pushover to put in charge, and they figure a lush might do nicely. They pick the wrong lush. Stone drinks too much, but he doesn't push easily. Soon he has tangled with Paradise's leading thug, Jo Jo Genest, and is becoming curious about the local militia outfit, to which most of the town's leading citizens belong. The new chief's suspicions about the town intensify when he learns that his predecessor has been murdered in remote Wyoming. As Stone's first major case plays out, he balances still-considerable feelings for his ex-wife against the nascent affair he's having with a local lawyer. The new series by the creator of the hugely successful Spenser books has a great deal going for it: an empathetic, painfully flawed protagonist; an atmospheric small-town setting rife with corruption; and a whole new set of fascinating secondary characters. Parker is a true craftsman, and he's also extremely versatile, as he's proved in the past with his mainstream fiction and with his little-known classic, Wilderness (1979), and as he now proves again with this fine new series. ((Reviewed July 1997)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

The creator of the famed Spenser novels introduces a new detective series. Copyright 1998 Library Journal Reviews

Great series characters can wind up tyrannizing their creators, who often seek relief in secondary series heroes. But Professor Challenger didn't save Conan Doyle from Holmes, Tiger Mann never put the kibosh on Spillane's Mike Hammer and Jessie Stone, though a finely wrought protagonist, won't keep Parker's fans from clamoring for ever more Spenser stories. Parker writes of Stone, an alcoholic cop booted out of L.A. Homicide only to be offered a job as police chief of a small Massachusetts town, in the third person, and his plotting suffers from the resultant multiple viewpoints. With Parker playing nearly all his cards face-up, there's little mystery and no suspense as Jesse uncovers, then foils, a murderous conspiracy on the part of a town official and his white-power militia. Also, many of the the official, his bully of a sidekick, a couple of mobsters and a burned-out teen whom Jesse befriends will seem, though crisply carved, too familiar to Spenser devotees. And so will Jesse, for although alluringly moody and silent, he is, like Spenser, a tough man of honor who gets the job done. What's less predictable here are the complex, expertly shaded relationships, especially romantic, as Jesse flails and fails at loving both his ex-wife and his new girlfriend. The most powerful romance here, though, is between Parker and the written word. He has employed the third person before, most notably in Wilderness and the cop saga All Our Yesterdays. Still, his doing so is sufficiently rare that it is exceedingly satisfying to watch this prose master lay down his cool, clean lines from outside someone's skin. 125,000 first printing. (Sept.) Copyright 1998 Publishers Weekly Reviews