Night Passage - Robert B Parker

 Night Passage is by the actual Robert B Parker.  Dating from 1999, it is the first of the Jesse Stone series, now being continued by others.  This is the one in which Jesse is sacked by the LAPD because he's taken to drink after the break-up of his marriage to aspiring actress Jenn - to be almost immediately hired as Sheriff of Paradise, Massachusetts, on the other seaboard of the Continent.

Paradise is a sleepy town, and that's the way bank president and head selectman Hasty Hathaway wants it kept. But then Jesse comes upon local muscleman Jo Jo Genest blatantly in breach of his restraining order and makes an enemy.  It starts with graffiti on a police car, then someone kills the police station cat.  Then a local woman is found dead, naked and dumped.  For Paradise, this is a crime wave and questions start being asked about the new sheriff.  To add to the pressure on Jesse, his ex-wife gets in touch just as he is starting a new relationship with the town attorney.

It's a cracking story involving the Boston Mob and local militiamen exercising their constitutional right to bear (and buy) arms.  I liked Parker's panache and attention to detail.  For me, the best bits were the phone conversations between Jesse and his ex.  This was Parker really building his protagonist's character.

Robert B Parker's The Devil Wins - Reed Farrel Coleman

Robert B Parker was a massively successful writer of moderately hardboiled crime fiction series, notably the Spenser series.  His second string, with nine novels, was Jesse Stone.  Doubtless somebody was hired to continue the Spenser series when Parker died in 2010.  Reed Farrel Coleman was the second writer hired to continue the casefiles of Jesse Stone.  This is the second of six continuations thus far.

Coleman is himself the author of successful series.  He has also collaborated with others, including Ulster's own Ken Bruen.  He is, in short, a professional.  He knows what he is doing.

So, Jesse Stone is a former LAPD homicide detective who lost his job because of his drinking.  He moved crosscountry to become local police chief in Paradise, Mass., a commuter town for Boston.  In The Devil Wins an autumn wind reveals three bodies in an abandoned building, two young girls who went missing 25 years earlier, and a fresh John Doe.  A side of Paradise and its history is revealed that Stone knew nothing about.  His righthand woman, Officer Molly Crane, was friends with these girls.  There's a lot of pressure on Stone to solve the case, particularly from the town's elected leaders.  The national media is interested, especially when the mother of one of the girls, a noted sexpot in her day and now married to an elderly millionaire, goes off a cliff minus her panties.

The story really is well done.  The town comes alive with its friendships, alliances, rivalries.  The characters, too, are three-dimensional, expertly layered.  But it's the steady revelation of the mystery that Coleman does so well.  I shall certainly keep my eye out for more of his work.  Who knows, I might even try one of Parker's originals.