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Night and Day A Jesse Stone Mystery
Robert B Parker
Berkley 2010
307 pages paperback
The eighth Jesse Stone mystery novel Night and Day is as formulaic as they come. This time, that doesn’t get in the way of a pretty decent mystery. There is a peeping Tom lurking in Paradise and a school principal is in trouble for running an underwear check before a school dance. Paradise police chief Jesse Stone is still not over his ex.
Robert B. Parker (Spenser, Sunny Randall, and Jesse Stone) is pumping out thrillers as quickly as McDonald’s burgers and it shows in the generic story development. The principal’s wife is a big shot lawyer so he puts pressure on the D.A. who puts pressure on Jesse Stone who puts pressure on the big shot lawyer. The peeping Tom is a decent enough villain though not particularly menacing.
This said, this Robert Parker mystery still makes for a decent read and a much better one that recent paperbacks like Spare Change or Blue Screen (Sunny Randall), Hundred-Dollar Baby (Spenser) or High Profile (Stone).
Parker manages not to down this whodunit in long passages involving Stone and his ex-wife Jen nor in particularly long psychobabble encounters with his shrink.
The peeping Tom story is interesting enough though a minor crime makes for a minor thrill.
Night and Day is a good beach read and if you happen to forget the book on the beach it is no big deal.