Sea Change

November 21, 2005
Filled with tawdry sexual shenanigans, bestseller Parker's fifth Jesse Stone novel (after 2003's Stone Cold
) finds the former L.A. cop, now the police chief of Paradise, Mass., tentatively reunited with his ex-wife, Jenn, and approaching a year since his last drink. The murder of a woman aboard a sailboat leads Stone into a world of wealth and depravity centered on a couple of yacht owners from Florida and their crowd. Drugs, pornography, rape and underage sex provide a degrading framework for the murder investigation. Stone gets a valuable assist from Kelly Cruz, a Fort Lauderdale cop, as he traces the backgrounds of victims and suspects. The laconic Stone with his uncertain relationship with Jenn, his struggle with alcohol and his visits to a therapist presents a striking contrast to Parker's primary hero, Spenser. But much of the dialogue is interchangeable: witty, flirtatious, droll and sexually charged. The outcome manages to be both surprising and depressing. Stone is a work in progress whose following is likely to increase as he continues to grow. Author tour.

April 3, 2006
Former LAPD cop and recovering alcoholic Jesse Stone is now the police chief of Paradise, Mass., a small suburb of Boston. It's quiet most of the time, except for the annual Race Week yachting event, and when murdered bodies wash up on shore. Stone's latest high-profile investigation—of the death of aging party girl Florence Horvath—takes him into a seedy underworld of sex, drugs and pornography that will leave listeners both titillated and disturbed. Sowers narrates in a strong, pleasant tenor and adeptly gives voice to Parker's witty, noir dialogue. Parker's stylistic quirk of using a "said" tag after almost every piece of dialogue stands out much more on audio than in print. Because Sowers alters his voice to distinguish between characters, a minor abridgment to remove some of these tags would have been less disruptive to the narrative flow. Sowers's performance overall is excellent and should leave listeners eager for another visit to Paradise. Simultaneous release with the Putnam hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 21, 2005).