Robert B. Parker writes a tough guy main character whose biggest flaw is his obsessive love of a woman who betrays him? Hmmmm…. I have the weirdest sense of deja vu….By the late ‘90s RBP could, and frequently seemed to, crank out a Spenser novel in his sleep so he started doing other things like this series featuring new hero Jesse Stone. Jesse was an LAPD homicide detective who lost his job thanks to the drinking brought on when his unfaithful wife divorced him. Even though he shows up to the job interview drunk Jesse gets hired to be the chief of the police department in small town Paradise, Massachusetts. Anxious to leave his ex-wife in California, Jesse moves across the country and gets his boozing down to manageable levels. Unfortunately, the town bigwig Hasty Hathaway hired a drunk to be the chief in the hopes that his criminal shenanigans would go unnoticed. However, while Jesse may be a functional alcoholic the key word there is ‘functional’, and he has no intention of looking the other way.When an author who created an iconic character like Spenser develops a new one there’s inevitably going to be comparisons so the first question that a fan like myself has is how Jesse measures up. The answer is pretty well. RBP had his hero recipe down to his exact taste by then so he didn’t try to spice it up too much, but he did throw in some new flavors. Jesse is younger than Spenser, more internalized and not such a smart ass. He’s also got more baggage, but the two are definitely cut from the same cloth as the tough guys who don’t suffer fools or have much patience for politics and hypocrisy. All in all he makes for a pretty solid hero for this type of crime novel.However, there are problems and they come from the author, not his lead character. In his later years RBP just could not get away from that repetitive theme of the good guy in love with a woman who isn’t really worthy of him. This one seemed to promise a breaking of old patterns with Jesse being among RBP’s most self-destructive main characters in some ways as well as actually making an effort to get over Jenn. It was more than a little disappointing when Jenn starts calling Jesse, and he resumes communicating with her because he just can’t let her go.That’s the primary factor why I wasn’t a big fan of this series and didn’t even read all the ones that RBP did. So why go back and start reading these? Two reasons.First, like Ace Atkins taking over Spenser and breathing new life into the character, Jesse Stone is now being written by veteran crime writer Reed Farrel Coleman, and I want to check out those books so going back to the beginning and going through seems necessary to really gauge those new ones.Secondly, I was shocked to find that I enjoyed the TV movies starring Tom Selleck that were done based on the series. Although Selleck is a lot older than Jesse as written, the films have a brooding, character based atmosphere that feel like they’re improving upon the basic ideas of the book that build on the best of RBP rather than focusing on the boring repetitive elements. Catching some of those again as part of a Jesse Stone marathon gave me an itch to go back and give this series another try.
This is the first Jesse Stone novel. It went down pretty smooth. It's funny how many of the reviewers of this book were Spenser fans who grudgingly tried Jesse Stone as a Spenser substitute. I didn't read Robert Parker for about 30 years BECAUSE of Spenser. I found a poetry-spouting, intellectual boxer an implausible concept. Hawk should have been the main character in that series.Jesse Stone represents a character created in the later years of Robert B. Parker's life, just like John Sandford's Virgil Flowers. Both series are more laid back, less action, and more thinking. With that half-assed comparison of only two writers and some half-baked arm-chair psycho-analytic observations, I've concluded that Jesse Stone is a more mature character from a more mature writer producing more mature stories. I liked it. Didn't get my heart beating too fast. Didn't make me feel like I'd gotten too much exercise, although the semi-alcoholic Jesse Stone did create a craving for scotch I was previously able to control/ignore.I'll resist the temptation to compare it to the TV Movies with Tom Selleck. TV and books are just too different to make a fair comparison. Books have so much more room to develop the characters and the story, the movie doesn't stand a chance by comparison, though I will say Tom Selleck has those classic Jesse Stone one-word responses mastered to a point that I couldn't imagine anyone else saying those lines, even though he's 20 to 25 years older than the character in the book.Now that I've discovered the Jesse Stone series, I have to read the rest. So, I'd better get to it.
What do You think about Night Passage (1998)?
Good, fast read. Very Parker. Sexual prowess of actors in direct proportion to good-guy-bad-guy roles. Jesse Stone is a John Wayne Quiet Man -- strong, stoic. Mantra, "Never got in trouble for saying too little," but sensitive, forgiving of ex-wife's affairs, direct and honest in relationships, especially with young-cop Suit and drop-out Molly, are affecting. Jesse gradually evolves from alcoholic dependence to self-control as he works through the challenges of his new job. Comes about too easily, without apparent internal change. Story itself is ridiculous, sporting a crazy-right militia in Paradise MA (Cape Ann somewhere). Setting is too-lightly sketched, although picture of leaf changes from August to early winter are better drawn and appropriately emphasized from Jesse's perspective, having lived always in Arizona and California -- he is appropriately impressed with what the locals hardly notice. Everything happens much too fast.
—Don
This book is about the first appearance of Jesse Stone, a drunk and former homicide detective from LA. In order to escape the ruins of his divorce, job and alcoholism he applies for the job of Chief of police in Paradise Mass, on the other side of the continent. While he is still unsure why he got the job in the first place, he is gradually finding out "the why" since he started the work at Paradise. His curiosity for one is not the reason for him getting the job, the town elders preferred a drunk lush who did most of his looking into a bottle. Or at least the unofficial power-in-charge seems to feel that.Everything really starts of with the previous chief of police dying after a bomb goes off under his car in another state, he was moved to after his resignation. When a divorcee with 2 children dies under suspicious circumstances Jesse finds that he will have to up his game or he will lose his self respect as well in the beautiful-nothing-ever-happens town of Paradise.I like the writer Robert B Parker his prose and his characters, but for me Jesse Stone is his best creation. I did discover Jesse Stone due to Tom Sellecks portrayal on the telly and the missus and I actually share this liking. She has actually read some of the books as well, which is a compliment as her reading habits are somewhat different than mine.having read all of the Jesse Stone books by Robert B Parker and seen the TV-movies I am somewhat fearful for the future of Jesse Stone whose literary life has been way too short for my reading taste. Even if the movies veered of in another direction I kinda am annoyed with the TV bosses not continuing the series. Having read the first continuation novel by the TV-series writer I found that there just might be a future for Jesse Stone yet.
—Mark
I stumbled on the whole Jesse Stone saga whilst flicking through the TV channels one night, not looking for anything in particular. But the slow ponderous style of Jesse Stone immediately grabbed my attention and now I am hooked. I made a mistake though, I saw the TV series before reading the books so when I came to read this book I was surprised and delighted at how much more depth to the story there is.Don't get me wrong, Tom Sellecks's portrayal of Jesse Stone is perfect but the TV version differed from the book in several directions none of which detracted from the story. But I must emphasise that if you like your action action packed then maybe Jesse Stone is not for you as this is certainly a ponderous series. Jesse is an old hand cop from L.A. and both his employers and he himself thought he was coming out to grass, finished.But those that chose Jesse made a mistake for which they would pay dearly through the coming months. Paradise could have been named Peyton Place as Jesse becomes aware of some of the goings on around the place both illicit and sexual. Hasty is the boss man who has a wife who likes to get around and Hasty himself is head of a group of locals all dedicated to keeping things just as they are, only they hadn't figured on Chief Stone.Murder, mayhem, villains, sex, stroppy teenagers and a sceptical police force and the odd hero all make this, for me anyway an enjoyable read. I am lead to believe its best to try and read the books in sequence, not sure I will be able to to that but it also helps to keep the characters in sequence as well not least Jesse's wayward ex-wife Jenn, someone he can't quite shake off no matter how many different beds she has been in their divorce. I look forward to my next Jesse Stone read.
—Steve
