Trouble in Paradise - Softcover

4.01

9,330 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1842434438 ISBN 13: 9781842434437

Publisher: No Exit Press, 2013

Robert B. Parker and his legendary Spenser series have long been considered the ne plus ultra of detective fiction.  But the critics' praise for Jesse Stone's debut in Night Passage proved there was room for addition to the Parker literary canon.  "A novel as fresh as it is bold...Parker's sentences flow with as much wit, grace and assurance as ever, and Stone is a complex and consistently interesting new protagonist.  His speedy return will be welcome." (Newsday)

Stiles Island is a wealthy and exclusive enclave separated by a bridge from the Massachusetts coast town of Paradise.  James Macklin sees Stiles Island as the ultimate investment opportunity: all he needs to do is invade the island, blow the bridge, and loot the island.  To realize his investment, Macklin, along with his devoted girlfriend, Faye, assembles a crew of fellow ex-cons--all experts in their fields--including Wilson Cromartie, a fearsome Apache.  James Macklin is a bad man--a very bad man.  And Wilson Cromartie, known as Crow, is even worse.

As Macklin plans his crime, Paradise Police Chief Jesse Stone has his hands full.  He faces romantic entanglements in triplicate: his ex-wife, Jenn, is in the Paradise jail for assault, he's begun a new relationship with a Stiles Island realtor named Marcy Campbell, and he's still sorting out his feelings for attorney Abby Taylor.  When Macklin's attack on Stiles Island is set in motion, both Marcy and Abby are put in jeopardy.  As the casualties mount, it's up to Jesse to keep both women from harm.
A distinguished and talented actor, Richard Masur has been performing in movies and on television for over 20 years.  His many feature film credits include Multiplicity, Forget Paris, Six Degrees of Separation, My Girl and Risky Business.  He can be heard on the audio presentation of Robert Parker's Night Passage, also available from BDD Audio.

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Review:

Robert Parker's Trouble in Paradise imagines an old-fashioned tough guys' world where most of the women are summed up by their figures and the men are measured by their ability to intimidate. Chief Jesse Stone of Paradise, Massachusetts, is Parker's hero again in this sequel to Night Passage. When he's not thinking about what his girlfriends look like under their clothes, Stone's touring his beat, hanging out at the Gray Gull Hotel bar to get intelligence on local thugs, or interrogating teens about their destructive pranks. But he has a vulnerable side, too, and Parker adds new layers of depth and complexity to his latest series character. Jesse's still reeling from his divorce. He and his ex-wife, Jenn, are not entirely ready to let go. In fact, Jenn has followed Jesse east from L.A. and is suffering in the Boston climate as one of the anchors on the local news. Romance with Jenn is further complicated by Jesse's ongoing attraction to attorney Abby Taylor and his emerging relationship with realtor Marcy Campbell.

Jesse's domestic troubles are gradually overshadowed, however, when ex-con Jimmy Macklin arrives in town. Macklin plans to pull "the mother of all stickups" on the ritzy Stiles Island in Paradise Harbor. He has figured out that the Stiles Island bridge, with its underpinning of utility cables and pipes, is a veritable lifeline to the mainland, and he's gathered a rogues' gallery of professional crooks and killers to help him take the bridge and make the island into a thieves' paradise. The one problem: Macklin never figured that Paradise, Massachusetts, would have a police chief as tough and resourceful as Jesse Stone.

As usual, Parker's stark and facile prose perfectly complements the masculine sufferings of his hero, and the action of the novel unfolds with an effortlessness that intimates a craftsman at work. With Parker's Spenser safely canonized as a detective fiction legend, Jesse Stone's unfolding world offers a welcome new addition to Parker's ouevre. --Patrick O'Kelley

About the Author:

Robert B. Parker was the author of more than fifty books. He died in January 2010.

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