Customer Reviews

High Profile (A Jesse Stone Novel)

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

Jesse Stone is an interesting character for those of us who have followed Robert B Parker since his first books. In some ways, Jesse's hard drinking of whiskey and bed-hopping is very similar to Spenser's early days. In other ways, Jesse's style is a duplicate of modern Spenser. You hear the exact same vocabulary describing situations, the type of characters around him is pretty much the same, his sensibilities, history and focus in life is very similar.
For a tiny town in coastal Massachusetts that has rarely seen murders until Jesse appeared, he appears to have the Curse of the Ages. Every year there are serial murders, bodies dropping dead left and right, in very bizarre circumstances. They've barely recovered from last year when they find both a man hung from a tree and a pregnant woman lying in a dumpster. Poor Jesse is just getting the basics set on these when his ex-wife Jenn calls - she's been raped, and she wants Jesse at her side 24x7.

In a typical Parker twist which seems a little farfetched, Jesse immediately thinks that the best way to manage his life is to call on his current girlfriend, Sunny, who he's in love with, to watch over and take care of his ex-wife. That sets us up for many scenes of Sunny telling Jenn about Jesse, Jenn telling Sunny about her feelings, Sunny telling Jesse what Jenn thinks about Jesse, and many other permutations. In the meantime, they do a little detecting, the State Police wave every once in a while, the Governor makes a few feeble threats, and they figure out who does what in which room with which weapon.

It's intriguing that my boyfriend feels Jesse is pretty much a Spenser clone. Again, the use of pretty much the exact same terms and words, the same responses to situations and the same general range of interests makes them brothers, if not clones. On the other hand, I do appreciate the ways in which Parker tries to differentiate them a bit. Spenser was stubbornly loyal, good at fighting but dispassionate, and a medium drinker. Jesse is stubbornly loyal, good at fighting and with a dark streak, and a heavy drinker. Where Spenser would find a way to disarm an opponent or defuse the situation, Jesse plugs the guy several times in the chest. Spenser hears of a situation and finds way to prepare for trouble. Jesse reacts viscerally with surging adrenaline, preparing for instant action.

In many ways this book reminded me strongly of Walking Shadow, a book with certain characters I hated. I tried not to let that influence me too much in this one, but just as I hated the ending of Walking Shadow, I really hated the ending here. It's hard to talk about it without giving away a section of the book's plot. Let's just say there are numerous parts of the ending that I hated, for different reasons. A big part of what I dislike is the underlying message of "real love is innately an obsession - you stay even if your mind knows it's wrong". So this means that women beaten by their husbands should stay? Love is NOT about obsession. Love is when feelings *and* rational thought are together saying the same thing. If your mind is telling you this is wrong and unhealthy - and you stay anyway - that's not love. I'm sure with psychotherapists lurking in every corner of these books, that someone would explain clearly what that amounts to.

So where does this leave me? Parker explicitly set Jesse up to be a much more flawed character than Spenser, perhaps to ward off complaints by some that Spenser had turned into a veritable saint. I'm all for flawed characters. Heck, Jesse drinks heavily, has flashes of rage, has unresolved issues. He makes poor decisions in life. Really, this addresses the complaints rather nicely. So what are my issues? That he's too flawed? That he's flawed in ways that I don't enjoy reading about? That he'd be better as a nearly-perfect Spenser clone with only some odd problems? I know Jesse's flaws do frustrate me. But I also accept that it's nice to have non-Hollywood endings and an imperfect world. I think my main issue is that his flaw involves "stay with a harmful person even when you know it's harmful, because you call the obsession 'love'". That bugs me a great deal.

Still, I love the world of Massachusetts that these stories are set in. I love the diversity of characters that Jesse runs into, the large soap opera style world full of people we know, understand and have a full history of. I like that there are bright, capable women shown in many aspects of life, mixed right in with the insipid, shallow ones. I'll certainly keep reading all of the series to see what goes on with the world.

I guess I have to say that by the end of this specific story, through, I'd lost some respect for Jesse. As much as this is a fictional story, Jesse ends up being a role model for many people, and the stories affect how people think about life and love. I really don't like the message it's sending right now.

Two bodies, one deliberately hung and one hidden in a trash dumpster, turn up in Paradise, MA police chief Jesse Stone's jurisdiction, both shot with the same gun. Jesse investigates, but it seems that every potential suspect has a perfect alibi. Could a deranged fan have killed the well-known and controversial radio talk show commentor? Or perhaps it was one of his current or past wives? Then again, what, exactly, did the dead man's bodyguard do--and why wasn't he doing it when his client was killed?

Stone's investigation is disturbed when his ex-wife forces herself into the scene with a story of rape and stalking. Busy with the double murder, Stone asks his semi-girlfriend, private detective Sunny Randall, to protect his ex-wife and to investigate her story.

Author Robert B. Parker delivers his trademark high-zing dialogue, coupled with his typically psychologically damaged characters. Stone is distracted by his ex-wife's problems, and continues to be obsessed with her, unable to complete the break he needs to move forward in his life. Jenn, the ex-wife makes things tougher for him by pushing herself at him while remaining completely unwilling to offer him the kind of commitment he demands.

With Parker, you can depend on an engaging, fast-paced read. His dialogue runs, with short phrases, single words, and clever zings let our eyes fly down the page, stopping occasionally to enjoy an especially cute bit of reparte. The mystery itself is interesting although relatively uncomplicated with little sense of danger. With Jesse more worried about his wife than about the two dead people, it's hard for us to care too much whether their killer is ever caught.

The underlying theme of this novel, that love is irrational and causes people to do irrational things, doesn't sit well with me and I confess that my enjoyment of the book was limited by this message. In my opinion, Jesse needs a new psychologist--one who'll tell him to grow up and stop jerking himself around, or letting the sexy Jenn jerk him around. Clearly Jenn is disturbed. But Jesse's attraction to her indicates that he's got problems also--and although he's seeing a psychologist, the guy doesn't seem to be helping much. So, switch psychologists and find yourself a woman who's not sick. Sunny won't do--she's got the same damned problems you do, Jesse--which is probably why you were attracted to her.

First Sentence: Each spring surprised Jesse.

A high-profile talk-show host is found hanged in the park. His assistant/girlfriend is found dead in a dumpster. As if Police Chief Jesse Stone doesn't have enough with two murders, his ex-wife, Jenn, calls to say she was raped and is being stalked. While Jesse investigates the murders, Sunny Randall, with whom he has been building a relationship, agrees to stay with Jenn and find the stalker.

I love Parker's writing but his stories are starting to bore me, which is a shame. I will always say he is the master of dialogue, even the laconic Jesse, whom Parker offsets with Suit, the young policeman and the best character in the story. The murders and their investigation is interesting. But I could do completely without the can't-live-with, can't-live-without relationships. It wasn't a great book, but there was still enough of Parker's classic style that I enjoyed it.

I read all the glowing reviews and couldn't help but wonder if I read the same book. I read this book in one sitting this evening and it was mediocre at best. I wasn't too keen w/ the last RBP book that I read either.

He seems to be veering down that James Patterson road- thin plot and not much other substance.

And, yet again, his so-called knowledge of women and women's issues had me shaking my head. Is Susan the only positive woman that he can have in his books. Well, Sunny Randall is a stronger character, as well.

I was really disappointed with this book and very glad that my father in law shared it--it was checked out from the library.

I miss the old RBP--with the better, witty writing. The last few books are really beach reads or at the very least get the book at the local library and save your money.

I'm sorry to be so negative, the only reason it got one star was that there was no option for NO stars.

I have been a RBP fan for many, many years and eagerly awaited the publication of the next of the series, be is Spenser, Sunny, or Jesse. After finishing this one, I flat give up on Jesse. The man is a fool. I agree wholeheartedly with the earlier mention of moving on. Cher should walk up to Jesse and deliver her infamous "Moonstruck" slap to him: "Snap out of it!" I don't care how much you THINK you love someone, it makes no sense -- and very little literary entertainment -- to continue to be such a total dupe. Yes, I like Jesse the police chief; I do not like Jesse the whiner. At all. If someone keeps carrying this hot a torch for such a manipulative, narcissistic ex-wife, he needs more than just psychotherapy -- he needs a lobotomy!

Parker's books for years have had wide margins, larger than normal type, and thicker pages -- obvious padding for basically a short story or novella. Hey, we live in a capitalistic society and if he can keep selling 'em, fine. But I stopped buying quite a few years ago and now check 'em out of the library. Until he gets back to the quality of Looking for Rachel Wallace and Early Autumn, for Spenser, along with Sunny and Jesse, I won't be buying his books. Right now, I'm not sure I have any interest in reading them.

Very disappointing.

Jenn and Sunny, I mean. I have never met a woman like either of them. (And I've been friends with females, and been one myself, for my entire life!) Jenn is a promiscuous, ambitious weathergirl/newscaster who will sleep with anyone to get ahead, but who has no interest in current affairs, her industry or the goings-on at her own station. Huh? (Towards the end of the book, Jenn reports having heard about the resolution of Jesse's case "on the news," an odd choice of words for a woman who theoretically spends hours each day in a news room.) Yet, like Susan in the Spenser books, every man, woman and child who meets her admires her and likes her. Okeedokee. Then we have Sunny. Bright, attractive and self-reliant, she remains in love with her ex-husband Richie, even though he has remarried and has a baby on the way (at least his wife was pregnant in a recent Sunny novel; no mention of it here). Why can't she move on? Does the Good Lord need to write IT'S OVER on her forehead? Even better, Parker has these two women, who are sharing the same man, spend enormous amounts of time together and even become fond of one another. The former is highly implausible, the latter rings completely false.

Also, who is paying Sunny for her time protecting Jenn? She's doing all this for Jesse? For sisterhood? For free?

The central mystery of the book -- the murder of a radio/TV personality -- captured my imagination. Especially because the killers believed the cops in Paradise, MA, are all yahoos and easy to fool. I enjoyed the scenes in the police station and when law enforcement is on the trail of the killers.

But the misogyny and complete lack of credibility with which Jenn and Sunny are treated is disturbing.

I was a big Parker fan for many years. Even after I recognized his pathological attitude toward male/female relationships, I still enjoyed the Spenser novels for a long time, but they've been going gradually downhill for a long time now, and for me, they've reached the end.

Parker's heroes are always strong, competent, intelligent, witty men who are obsessively in love with women who don't deserve them. Women who are beneath them. This was particularly evident in his stand alone novels "Glory" and "Wilderness." In the Spenser novels this became evident in the early part of the series when Susan leaves Spenser and cheats on him but won't cut him loose (does this sound familiar?). Eventually, Susan and Spenser come to a settlement of their problem: They don't live together but they are sexually faithful to one another.

So then Parker decides that he needs a new series character because Spenser is getting a little long in the tooth. (According to one of the early Spenser novels, he was a soldier in the Korean War. I figure that puts him in his 70s.) He comes up with Jesse Stone. And guess what--Jesse is obsessively in love with his ex-wife who cheated on him and who is constantly sleeping with any man who might be able to advance her in her career, but when Jesse moves all the way across the country to get away from her, she follows him. Does Jesse tell her to leave him the *@#$ alone? No. He moons over her. He takes her to bed any time he gets the chance (while still making it with other women in every book). And his sniveling about how miserable this makes him has gotten worse with each installment in the series.

In this entry in the series, I'd say two-thirds of the book is taken up with him moaning to someone or other about how rotten his ex-wife is and how mentally ill she is and how mentally ill he is and he can't leave her and he can't commit to anyone else, and he loves her, loves her, loves her (Oh, and also he loves to drink), and he doesn't know what he's going to do, boo hoo hoo.

Gag me with a spoon.

If you are interested in reading good mysteries about a man with a drinking problem, I recommend the Matt Scudder novels by Lawrence Block. The last couple in that series are not as good as the earlier ones either, but by and large they are FAR better than any of the Jesse Stone books.

This is enough! I love Parker, and i love Jesse Stone.He showed great promise in the beginning of the Stone series.However, i am tired of his hanging on to that low life, cheating, obviously disturbed ex wife. I also found Sunny's relationship with Jenn to be odd. If i had the opp to be with a great guy, no way would i condone the way his ex wife jerks him around. Geez, either add more plot or i am firing you Parker.

Always like Jesse Stone (I can see Tom Selleck while reading the books.) This is a good one, with Sunny thrown in at no charge.

This is the sixth novel in the Jesse Stone series and Jesse's emotional life is exactly where it was in the first. He's stuck on a woman who "loves" him but can't resist sleeping with other men. This is particularly irritating because in the last Sunny Randall novel, Jesse and Sunny got together, and there was pretty good reason to expect that relationship to last. Oh well, Parker just can't resist going over the same played out ground.

What is perhaps even more annoying is the insistence on referring to Jenn as psychologically flawed. Parker just can't bring himself to acknowledge that she might simply be naturally promiscuous, a woman who needs a lot of men (note that such a thing is not in the slightest bit incompatible with loving one man above all the rest), or rather he does acknowledge it but insists on regarding the trait as requiring psychotherapy. But psychotherapy cannot change one's nature, it can only--at best--help one understand, and thereby accept it.

The plot is tiresome. Parker has dwelt on both the redeeming and destructive power of love many times before. With Spencer, at least, we've gone past the adolescent angst. With Jesse, and with Sunny as well, we keep going over the same, tired stuff. The mystery, almost needless to say, is handled with Parker's usual panache. It's fairly predictable (they most often are with Parker) but the snappy dialogue and interplay between the cast make his books worth reading (usually). But unless he gets his characters over the emotional [...], well...he's lost me.