In the middle of this audio book now - Enjoying it very much. (It's in the car so it takes a while!)

I've been a faithful follower of the Robert B Parker stories through all the Spenser stories and on through Sunny and Jesse. To read this current story you really need to at least have read the previous Jesse stories, if not the others. They are all intertwined like a giant soap opera, with characters, scenes and dialogue which trace back to the very roots of the tales.

I've commented in the past that it seems unlikely that Jesse, a small town cop in a quiet, seaside area of Massachusetts, was encountering murder after murder year after year. In this story he does NOT have a bizarre string of murders in his small town. On one hand this is great - just what kind of an evil jinx is on Paradise, anyway? But on the other hand, it makes the story really boring. You don't really care about this slightly deranged school principal. Some of the families are wife swapping. So? With all the issues in the world, we really care if they have consensual sex every once in a while?

Spenser is set in Boston, but Jesse is set in Paradise. This is part of the issue. You can believe that Spenser keeps running into mob families and murders and prostitution. He's in a big city. Jesse is in a tiny town. Just how much chaos can there be there year after year? So either Paradise has to become an extremely unlikely hotbed of evil, or the stories are going to get boring. I'm afraid the latter happened here.

It doesn't help that - for the umpteenth book - Jesse is still moaning about his ex-wife who he sleeps with, longs after, and is used by. The parallels between Jesse's obsession for Jen and the stalker's obsession for the women he chases are extremely blatant. As is the mystery of who is involved. There just isn't much real tension here, or sleuthing. It is all about characters you know and dialogue you expect.

The book spacing and quick dialogues mean the book is a VERY quick read - as in maybe 3 or 4 hours tops. Some of the talk was still laugh out loud funny - Parker does have a way with words and it can shine through. Much of the time, though, it was very predictable.

I love Parker's characters - but there are too many recycled ones here, too many one dimensional characters that you can identify immediately when you see them.

There's also a great deal of "telling" in the story. You hear about Jesse's right-hand-man that "He was called Suitcase after the baseball player, Harry 'Suitcase' Simpson." That's rather blatant! In previous stories there was at least some semblance of introducing the information during actual character interplay. Or does Jesse just have these sorts of expositional thoughts as he's drinking his coffee?

It's also intriguing that quotes such as "Readiness is all" - which are repeated in almost every other Spenser / Jesse book - are tripping off the lips of characters such as the stalker. I don't mind Spenser and Jesse always running into literary-minded evil doers, but can they please at least expand the book of quotes they choose to share?

I'm torn. I love Parker's style when he's writing thoroughly. I would never want him to stop. But I really think he's spreading himself too thin and doing a disservice to each book as a result. He has the Spenser line going. The Appaloosa line. Now a new "Baby Spenser" book. He is trying to crank out too many projects in too little time and the result is less than great literature. I would much rather see just one book a year, and really treasure it.

Generally the Jesse Stone novels of Parker are the best of all of his characters IMHO. But this book doesn't really grab you until it is 3/4 complete. We have Jesse, Molly, Suit, Jenn, and all the other fun characters that come with the obsession with Jenn and the scotch. But in this book, Parker uses characters from all of his mystery novels in an interesting way. It was a disappointment until the very end. But the give and take of the characters and the devil may care attitude of Stone, still is what sells the book for me. Understand? Good! Proud of you!

A disappointing read. I've enjoyed the Jesse Stone series but this story didn't keep my interest. The story lacked a serious threat for Jesse to deal with. The bad guy just wasn't very bad and I really didn't care if he was caught as much as I wanted the book to end.

I think it is time for Parker to let Jesse stop obsessing about Jen. If Jesse isn't bored to death with their relationship, I sure am. She wasn't that interesting to begin with.

While many women romance authors have moved to the mystery thriller genre, this appears the first shift I'm aware of where a man who is great in the mystery thriller area shifts to romance novels. Come on Parker. Dump those feelings and add some crashes and murder. You're a guy!!.