The Devil Wins

July 13, 2015
Coleman’s solid second Jesse Stone novel (after 2014’s Blind Spot) finds Parker’s flawed hero, now the police chief of Paradise, Mass., still having trouble separating from his ex, connecting with people emotionally, and dealing with guilt over a subordinate’s near-fatal shooting. Therapy sessions help somewhat, but Jesse’s job is on the line after the discovery of three corpses. A man’s body is recent, but the other two are the skeletal remains of Mary Kate O’Hara and Virginia Connolly, two 16-year-olds who vanished about 25 years earlier. The dead girls were close friends of Jesse’s number two, police officer Molly Crane, whose personal connection to the case complicates matters. Paradise’s political leaders are dismayed at the bad press the murders bring to the town, and Jesse’s given a tight deadline to clear everything up. The solution is a bit of a letdown, but Coleman succeeds in adding some needed depth to Jesse’s character. Agent: Helen Brann, Helen Brann Agency.

July 1, 2015
While everyone else in Paradise, Massachusetts, is hibernating for the winter, Police Chief Jesse Stone returns to solve murders ancient and modern in his adopted town. Even though the Paradise Police Department is effectively two officers short, the discovery of a John Doe in an abandoned factory in Trench Alley shortly after it collapses would hardly strain its resources if it weren't for another discovery nearby: a pair of skeletons in a hole a few feet away. Officer Molly Crane, moved from desk duty to the patrol rotation to replace Luther "Suitcase" Simpson, who's slowly recovering from getting gut-shot (Robert B. Parker's Blind Spot, 2014), instantly identifies the remains as those of Mary Kate O'Hara and Virginia Connolly, two of her old classmates from Sacred Heart High, who went missing on the Fourth of July 25 years ago. The gunshot wounds the more recent victim took to the head make it a lot less likely that he'll be identified soon. Jesse dutifully contacts the girls' parents, but the closest he gets to a lead comes when flamboyant divorcee Maxie Connolly, who blows into town with all the elemental force of a twister, apparently jumps off a cliff soon after. Jesse, who's not entirely convinced that the death of the tale's most appealing character was suicide, divines that someone's trying to cover something up. But surrounded as usual by unsupportive townsfolk as closemouthed as they are closed-minded, he can only wait for the bad guys to make a mistake-unless Cpl. Drew Allen Jameson, who thinks he recognizes a distinctive tattoo on the John Doe that's been broadcast around the country, can clear things up when he arrives. Whatever pleasures readers find in this cluttered, long-winded, generally unsurprising tale, they're remote from those formerly provided by the late Robert B. Parker and his laconic hero.

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August 1, 2015
Jesse Stone, police chief of Paradise, Massachusetts, has finally reached a level of contentment in his life, but there's still the occasional nor'easter, both climatological and emotional, to deal with in the small New England town. In the aftermath of a big storm (the climatological kind), one dead body and the skeletal remains of two other people are found in the debris from a collapsed building. Molly Crane, Jesse's deputy, identifies the skeletons (thanks to a single ring) as her best friends from high school who disappeared 20 years earlier. Small town, big secret, and a community's shame. In the blink of an eye, Jesse goes from worrying about potential storm damage to investigating three homicides. Coleman's second shot at the Stone franchise captures the spirit of Parker's characters and setting much better than last year's Blind Spot. This is a suspenseful, melancholy examination of loss and how sometimes, despite our best efforts, the past refuses to stay buried, and it will certainly please fans still craving more of Parker's characters.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

April 15, 2015

Three bodies are found in a storm's wake: a recently murdered man and the skeletal remains of two teenage girls who disappeared 25 years ago, before Jesse Stone even arrived as police chief in Paradise, MA. Three-time Shamus Award winner Coleman has nicely picked up the late Parker's Jesse Stone series where he left off.

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