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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

2,715 ratings

Book 5 of 21: Jesse Stone Novels

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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
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On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

G.P. Putnam's Sons
Publication date

February 7, 2006
Reading age

18 years and up
File size

1597 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

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000PDYW0Q
Publisher ‏ : ‎ G.P. Putnam's Sons (February 7, 2006)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 7, 2006
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1597 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 314 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #46,885 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #292 in Hard-Boiled Mysteries (Kindle Store)
- #1,535 in Police Procedurals (Kindle Store)
- #1,723 in Crime Thrillers (Kindle Store)

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2,715 ratings

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Robert B. Parker

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Robert B. Parker (1932-2010) has long been acknowledged as the dean of American crime fiction. His novel featuring the wise-cracking, street-smart Boston private-eye Spenser earned him a devoted following and reams of critical acclaim, typified by R.W.B. Lewis' comment, "We are witnessing one of the great series in the history of the American detective story" (The New York Times Book Review). In June and October of 2005, Parker had national bestsellers with APPALOOSA and SCHOOL DAYS, and continued his winning streak in February of 2006 with his latest Jesse Stone novel, SEA CHANGE.

Born and raised in Massachusetts, Parker attended Colby College in Maine, served with the Army in Korea, and then completed a Ph.D. in English at Boston University. He married his wife Joan in 1956; they raised two sons, David and Daniel. Together the Parkers founded Pearl Productions, a Boston-based independent film company named after their short-haired pointer, Pearl, who has also been featured in many of Parker's novels.

Parker began writing his Spenser novels in 1971 while teaching at Boston's Northeastern University. Little did he suspect then that his witty, literate prose and psychological insights would make him keeper-of-the-flame of America's rich tradition of detective fiction. Parker's fictional Spenser inspired the ABC-TV series Spenser: For Hire. In February 2005, CBS-TV broadcast its highly-rated adaptation of the Jesse Stone novel Stone Cold, which featured Tom Selleck in the lead role as Parker's small-town police chief. The second CBS movie, Night Passage, also scored high ratings, and the third, Death in Paradise, aired on April 30, 2006.

Parker was named Grand Master of the 2002 Edgar Awards by the Mystery Writers of America, an honor shared with earlier masters such as Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen.

Parker died on January 19, 2010, at the age of 77.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

2,715 global ratings

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4 star		30%
3 star		10%
2 star		2%
1 star		1%

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Wayne C. Rogers

A wonderful continuation of the "Jesse Stone" series!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 20, 2006

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As with Robert Urich playing the role of Spenser in the television series from the mid-to-late eighties, I now see Tom Selleck as our flawed hero, Jesse Stone, and Viola Davis as Molly Crane and Mimi Rogers as the beautiful and sexy Rita Fiore. And, for some strange reason this has made the "Jesse Stone" series even more fun for me to read. I have a face to put on all the recurring characters and this makes me look forward to each "Jesse Stone" novel when it comes out, enjoying a brief reunion with new and trusted friends. Though some of the books are better than others, in my opinion there are no bad "Jesse Stone" novels. I've loved all five books, and I avidly look forward to the newest one, Sea Change, being turned into a TV movie with Mr. Selleck reprising the role of Paradise, Massachusetts police chief, Jesse Stone.

In Sea Change, Jesse Stone has to solve the murder of an attractive, middle-aged woman who was found floating in the harbor of Paradise. The victim, Florence Horvath, turns out to be an out-of-towner from Fort Lauderdale, Florida and Jesse will have to turn to Detective Kelly Cruz of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department for help on this one. While both of them work the case from their respective ends of the country, Jesse discovers that the victim may have come to Paradise for its annual Race Week with boaters arriving from all over the eastern seaboard to participate in and to watch the big racing event. This leads to the discovery of an amateur sex ring amongst some of the boaters, involving female teenagers from Paradise. As Jesse investigates the murder case, he must also deal with his battle to remain sober and with his ex-wife, Jenny, being back in his life once again and what that means to him emotionally. Before the book ends and the case is solved, Jesse's going to learn a lot about himself, his love for Jenny, and how people can treat others as inanimate objects for their own sexual gratification. It's not easy being a flawed hero, but Jesse does the best he can one day at a time.

Like the other novels by Robert Parker, Sea Change is a quick read. I picked it up and was finished in just a few hours. I consider that a compliment to Mr. Parker's craftsmanship as a writer. I have a number of novels on my shelf that I had to put down after only thirty pages because of outright boredom with the story line. I've never had that problem with anything Mr. Parker has written. His books are always pure fun to read with realistic dialogue that brings a true smile to one's face, characters that eventually become close friends to the reader, and a sense of style that few other writers are able to emulate. Sea Change is no different. It takes the character of Jesse Stone one step further in his life with a clearer understanding of what it means to be a human being and how to insure that justice for those who've been harmed by others is finally achieved. A very, very good read!

11 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.

4 people found this helpful

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crafty lefthander

MURDER SEX AND MORE SEX

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 10, 2013

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Prior to Sea Change in the Jesse Stone series, Robert B. Parker gave us Stone Cold. In that book, a wealthy pair of psychopaths, husband and wife, felt surges of excitement by watching themselves having sex on videotape and then whacking innocent victims. In this volume, there is so much sex and accompanying videotape that the lurid aspects of it all might well have overcome the story, for there is sex of all kinds, group sex, three way sex, incest, child molestation. Surprisingly, Parker pieces it all together well, so that the behavior becomes essential to the various plotlines which includes a helpful investigation by a Florida cop. The stupidity of some of these characters is in fact, crucial. As Jesse says after first interviewing the younger twin sisters of the murder victim, "So much sex, so little brains." These are people with which the normal folks reading this review are unfamiliar. Or at least I hope so.

Just prior to the annual summer event in Paradise, Massachusetts called Boat Week, the body of a mid-thirties female washes up near the town wharf. During his investigation, Stone questions various people, including boat owners and bimbos, who all treat sex like ping pong games. The men are rich, the women out for fun. Jesse repeatedly notices that none of this resembles love, and, as he struggling himself to deal with his ex-wife's sexuality prior to them moving in together again, it saddens, even angers him a little. Not that our hero had been living the life of a Fransiscan monk, as one of his former brief flames relates.

As I was reading the book, it occurred to me that despite being a mystery writer, Parker spent a lot of time musing about love, how to find it, sustain it, enrich it and understand it. Those long conversations that took place between Spenser and Susan Silverman in the better known and much longer running series were essentially about their love for each other. Here, Jesse, trying to recover what he thought he had with his TV weather girl ex-wife Jenn, searches for some definitive understanding of his feelings. It doesn't matter that Jenn comes across in all the Jesse Stone books as an airhead. Susan Silverman would have driven me to drink, not because she was unfaithful, but because she was living on a higher plane, thought she was smarter than everybody else, and let you know it. But as Plutarch wrote in attempting to explain why Marc Antony left the scene of battle to chase after Cleopatra, fleeing when she sensed his troops werre losing, "The soul of a lover is in another person's body." You just wish Jesse had found and loved somebody like the Irish Catholic cop, Molly, married, a mother, faithful and well-grounded. She frankly, should have been spun off and given her own series of crimes to solve, although I have not read any of Parker's Sunny Randall books. But at least here, Jesse not only solves more than one crime, he understands himself better. And doesn't drink a drop of liquor through most of this tome.

9 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

N. Broad

Book great, download not so much.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 26, 2021

Verified Purchase

I sought the Robert Parker books after discovering that Tom Selleck portrayed Jesse Stone. Having followed Tom from Magnum, Three Men and a Baby, and Blue Bloods, I thought he would be worth a viewing with Jessie. The films do cover the books very sympathetically, with a few changes that really don't affect the overall finish (so far that I've seen, opinions may vary!!). I would certainly recommend them as an interesting read, sometimes with the villian obvious and we follow Jesse to the proof, or with the villian revealed much later in the story. I love the books, they read very naturally, or perhaps just utterly suit how I like to read.
My only grumble with this Kindle book (Mr Parker didn't need to lose a star for this) is that the download appears to be in pale grey rather than the usual black. I 'turn' the page and the text is black for a moment, then fades to the gray. Apparently something to do with greyscale rendering, but it was very annoying, especially as I thought it was my Kindle messing it up!! But the story, five stars!

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

Curt Eiworth

Jesse Stone rules

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 3, 2021

Verified Purchase

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.

patricia clancy

Sex or love

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 12, 2020

Verified Purchase

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

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