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Avg. Rating: 3.5
Hot waves and cold murder
The operative words here are "sex ring." See if that doesn't bring Parker fans to the cash register. In this case, the ring has two parts. The first is a pair of very wealthy men, each of whom owns a very large yacht aboard which they party with the second part, namely, beautiful young girls with time on their hands and sex, comfort and a cushy life style on their minds.
Which brings ex-LAPD cop--now police chief of Paradise, Mass.--Jesse Stone the case of Florence Plum, a woman who has been thrown overboard by someone at the tiller of a sailboat she rented. A couple of weeks after the murder, her partially decomposed body floats into a cove of Stone's modest seaside village.
It's an inconvenient time given that it's the annual Race Week for sailing vessels. Boat enthusiasts of all description and wealth categories crowd the harbors, docks and streets like just-hatched mosquitoes. Nevertheless, chief Stone gets to work by checking boat-rental places for missing crafts. When he gets the driving license of one Florence Plum of Fort Lauderdale, job #2 is finding out who Ms. Plum was and who she crossed...
For the full review, visit Jules Brenner's book review site, "The 'M' Files" at http://variagate.com/bookrevs.htm
Disappointing
SEA CHANGE is the fifth entry in the series featuring Jesse Stone, Chief of Police of Paradise, Massachusetts. Jesse's' most recent case is investigating the body of a decomposed woman washes ashore in Paradise. Florence Horvath was wealthy with too much time on her hands for booze, wine, and men. As Jesse delves into her past family secrets are uncovered.
I usually enjoy the Jesse Stone novels. I like the character a bit more than Spenser. Jesse is still dripping with Parker's prerequisite machismo, but Jesse has a bit more emotional depth. This is my least favorite in the series because at the end the whole premise of the narrative left me feeling a bit dirty. There were no redeeming characters except the recurring cast. It written in the usual easy-reading Parker style, but there are so many better stories from his vast backlist.
Sex, crime, and videotape. And some really nice yachts
Mr. Parker's latest Jesse Stone thriller is laced with his usual entertaining banter and humor, but this time we also get a memorably dark and moody whodunit plot. It's interesting that several reviewers seemed to be turned off by the edginess of the sex and violence this time out. I don't know about them, but I think a mystery thriller is doing its job if it makes you squirm a bit. And after all, there are lots of "cozy" mystery stories out there featuring little old ladies who solve neat, bloodless crimes in their spare time if that's what one prefers.
For me, though, I enjoy Jesse Stone in his jeans and baseball cap investigating suspicious characters, this time hedonistic yacht owners in town for the annual yacht race. And I also enjoyed that Mr. Parker's murder plot genuinely kept me guessing right to the end.
The Jesse Stone series continues to be worth following, and it's getting better with each installment. What's the series like? Imagine the movie "Jaws", only with Chief Brody investigating crimes in his seaside town instead of dealing with man-eating sharks. Thats basically the series in a nutshell. And an entertaining nutshell it is.
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