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Sea Change (Jesse Stone Novels Book 5) by [Robert B. Parker]

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Robert B. Parker

Sea Change (Jesse Stone Novels Book 5) Kindle Edition

by Robert B. Parker (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

1,207 ratings

Book 5 of 20: Jesse Stone

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Police chief Jesse Stone faces the case of his career in this thrilling novel in the New York Times bestselling series.

When a woman's partially decomposed body washes ashore in Paradise, Massachusetts, police chief Jesse Stone is forced into a case far more difficult than it initially appears. Identifying the woman is just the first step in what proves to be an emotionally charged investigation. Florence Horvath was an attractive, recently divorced heiress from Florida; she also had a penchant for steamy sex and was an enthusiastic participant in a video depicting the same. Somehow the combination of her past and present got her killed, but no one is talking—not the crew of the Lady Jane, the Fort Lauderdale yacht moored in Paradise Harbor; not her very blond, very tan twin sisters, Corliss and Claudia; and not her curiously affectless parents, living out a sterile retirement in a Miami high rise. But someone—Jesse—has to speak for the dead, even if it puts him in harm's way.

Print length

314 pages
Language

English
Publisher

G.P. Putnam's Sons
Publication date

February 7, 2006
Reading age

18 years and up
File size

1023 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for Sea Change

“A fast-paced fascinating mystery.”—The Providence Journal

“The complicated, all-too-human Jesse Stone [is] every bit as compelling, charismatic and resolute as [the] better-known, valiant Spenser.”—The Boston Herald

“Crackles with wisecracks.”—Forbes

“Parker is dead-on here...the story swirls from whodunit into an absorbing whydunit.”—Booklist

“Strong enough to rank near [Parker’s] best.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Worthy of the late John D. MacDonald.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

About the Author

Robert B. Parker was the author of seventy books, including the legendary Spenser detective series, the novels featuring Police Chief Jesse Stone, and the acclaimed Virgil Cole–Everett Hitch westerns, as well as the Sunny Randall novels. Winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award and long considered the undisputed dean of American crime fiction, he died in January 2010.

From Publishers Weekly

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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile

Race Week in Paradise, Massachusetts, brings Police Chief Jesse Stone more than the usual problems of bar fights and rowdy revelers when the body of a young woman washes ashore. Scott Sowers clips the flat Boston accents to portray the deputies and townsfolk--not overdone, but spot-on when he uses them. Sowers nicely captures the no-nonsense Stone-- former LA detective, now small-town sheriff. The smart dialogue is delivered in an almost syncopated style, making the best of Parker's "he said/ she said" conventions. Stone's perseverance in tracking a ring of sex peddlers and predators keeps the story intriguing, and his conquest of some personal demons bodes well for future entries in the series. R.F.W. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist

The body of an unidentified woman is found in a cove off the village of Paradise, Massachusetts, during the annual Race Week for sailing vessels. This is a particularly bad time for an unidentified body to surface, since the tiny populace is swollen with thousands of boat enthusiasts. Former LAPD cop and current Paradise police chief Jesse Stone, appearing in the Stone series' fifth entry, begins his investigation by inquiring if any boat-rental agencies have any boats missing. One rental owner comes forward, providing a driver's license of a Florida woman who never brought her boat back. After this promising lead, the case morphs from forensic identification into a disturbing morality play, as Stone digs deeper and deeper into the victim's past. This is a case that would intrigue Stone's private-eye counterpart, Spenser (who appears in a tantalizing cameo here). Parker is dead-on here when it comes to police procedure and plotting, as the seemingly simple case eddies into all kinds of ugly complications, and the story swirls from whodunit into an absorbing whydunit. On the down side, Parker's signature smart-ass dialogue is beginning to sound stale, even weak; why must all his characters talk in the same tough-guy way, heavy on the sexual innuendo? Similarly tired is the cutesy relationship between Stone and his ex-wife (punctuated by other women throwing themselves at him), which draws heavily on Spenser's relationship with Susan Silverman. Shortcomings aside, though, Parker's setting and plotting are enough to make most readers forgive the unrelenting Guy Noir style. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000PDYW0Q
Publisher ‏ : ‎ G.P. Putnam's Sons (February 7, 2006)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 7, 2006
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1023 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 314 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #35,202 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #242 in Hard-Boiled Mystery
- #328 in Hard-Boiled Mysteries (Kindle Store)
- #1,401 in Police Procedurals (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
1,207 ratings

Customer reviews

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3 star		11%
2 star		3%
1 star		1%

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Top reviews from the United States

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JM Harvey

And enjoyable series with a few drawbacks

Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2018

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I just started reading the Jesse Stone books, after a couple of decades of Robert Parker‘s other series, Spenser, I like the setting and I like the main character, and the peripheral characters. I even like the crossover characters from the Spenser books, but I am so sick of Jenn and the fact that their relationship has been dog paddling in a circle for five books At first it was an interesting character element, drunken homicide cop, dumped by his wife, kicked off the job, and only fixing his relationship can fix him, but with 1/3 of every book dedicated to whining about it I find myself skimming as quickly as I can as soon as I see her name. She makes me long for the smug relationship between Susan Silverman and Spenser that has annoyed me for 30 or 40 books. in an actual person this would be annoying, as a plot device it’s flat painful. That said the 2/3 of this book that I actually read was very entertaining. The mystery is good, the cop shop stuff is even better (A little sexist in places) and the resolution was satisfying with a good twist. A good book that could’ve been better.

17 people found this helpful

Helpful

Still a lot of the same Parker magic

Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2019

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I haven't read a Robert B. Parker book in a while, and I'd forgotten what a master of engagement he is. His books go down so smoothly, each chapter leaving you hungry for more. How? Why?

Part of it is just the magic that some writers have. Parker's style is simultaneously spare and full of apparently insignificant details; the effect is to immerse the reader without effort in a very real-seeming world. The impetus of the plot is internally generated, creating an organic sensation of forward momentum that all the careful study of plot structure in the world can't convey.

In other words, even late in his career the old master still had "it," whatever "it" is. "Sea Change" is almost stunningly more readable than most of what's out there.

At the same time, I can't say that it's Parker's best work. If you've read his other works, you'll recognize a lot of the same setup: an undefined relationship that requires a lot of therapy sessions for the main character to understand, set against a backdrop of a sordid story of sexual exploitation and abuse. And what is this with the fake accusations of rape? Kudos to Parker for making an effort throughout his career to write interesting and sympathetic female characters, but he never could quite shake the sexualization of his women, all of whom are more or less sex-mad.

That being said, "Sea Change" is a high-quality prose treat. If you're a Parker fan, you'll probably enjoy it. If you haven't read any Parker yet, you might want to start at the beginning of the series, but this will also give you a good enough intro. Either way, you're likely to enjoy it.

5 people found this helpful

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R. Jones

Perverts In Paradise

Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2021

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The fifth of Parker's Jesse Stone novels, Sea Change finds Stone trying to solve the murder of a young woman whose body floats up on the shore of Paradise, MA, where he's the chief of police. The investigation takes him down some very tawdry paths involving molestation, underage sex, and general perversion. (Consider this a trigger warning if reading about that sort of thing bothers you.) Some of the Stone novels give us the point of view of the criminal, but this one doesn't. Like the third book in the series, this is a straight police procedural in which we follow Stone and his fellow officers tracking down evidence, witnesses, etc. It's a well written and entertaining book, like the others in the series, and moves along quickly thanks to Parker's heavy use of dialogue and short, punchy chapters.

The mystery is only one part of the book, however. The other part deals with the on-going question of whether Jesse Stone and his ex-wife can successfully reconcile. To fully appreciate that part of the book, I recommend you read the first four books in the series first. At this point the series is like a long love story about Stone and his ex-wife, with the various mysteries thrown in to keep him busy. That's not to say that the mystery and crime elements aren't good, just that they only take up about 60% of any given book in the series.

One other note - Parker's Boston-based detective Spenser makes an unnamed cameo appearance in the book, in case you were wondering if the two series were related. I'm not as familiar with the Spenser novels, so there may be other crossover characters that I'm not aware of, but I do plan to work my way through that series eventually.

Helpful

Virginia Reader

Good book about a very twisted subject

Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2021

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Jesse Stone and his ex‐wife, Jenn, are somewhat tortured characters in this novel, trying to get their marriage together again. Jesse is a typical sexual male and Jenn sounds somewhat like a nymphomaniac, so they have a lot to go over. The plot of the novel is about three men and a host of women and girls, some of whom are underage, who are preoccupied with casual sex, videotaping it, and having multiple set partners. One of the women is killed and a totally dysfunctional family is slowly revealed. The killer isn't immediately obvious and the horrors of all this revolting scene are revealed in the course of identifying the murderer. A disturbing novel, and I hope people like this don't exist in real life, but I am afraid this is not all in the author's imagination..

Helpful

Donald F. Kaminski

Back with his wife

Reviewed in the United States on March 8, 2019

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I've followed Jesse Stone in the television series and liked it very much. This particular story has him on the wagon and cavorting with his x-wife. I envision all the characters as they are portrayed on television and this made the reading comfortable. However, I find the use of a fictitious town in Massachusetts annoying as I do in some of the William Tapply books, but Tapply's character is at least located in Boston, a real place. Whereas the story was entertaining, it was routine.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Reader

Brilliant

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 19, 2021

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I wish I’d met Robert B Parker’s books years ago, but then again, I wouldn’t be enjoying them quite so much now. His narrative is compelling and captivating. As the chapters are kept quite short, I keep thinking, just get to the end of this chapter and then go and do something!! Before I know it I’m halfway through the next one. I’ve never seen the Jesse Stone films and I’m glad I haven’t. Reading the books is, in my mind, so much more enjoyable and relaxing.

MS HAZEL BAXTER

Waste of a book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 12, 2020

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The only parts of the book I didn't like are to do with the x wife I skipped those parts especially if it was a whole chapter. To me it showed him as a pathetic man hung up on giving her the power to manipulate him. Waste of a good murder mystery.
All of the Jessie Stone books have her running through them, sad really

One person found this helpful

Suzy Walker

So well written

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 11, 2018

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I love these books . The characters are believable and we'll crafted ,the plot a page turner. Every word deserves its place in the text Jesse's story unfolds and developers as he discovers the horrors of a family broken by sex

patricia clancy

Sex or love

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 12, 2020

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Jesse doesn't know which but as usual he is a brilliant detective, thanks to Robert b Parker a brilliant intelligent man

Curt Eiworth

Jesse Stone rules

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 3, 2021

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Robert B Parker is one of my all time favourite writers and Jesse Stone is one of my favourite heroes. This is in my humble opinion not the best JS story, but still very good. Highly recommended.