Book #27 – Night and Day

I noticed a new Jesse Stone novel in the store the other day and when I went to grab a copy on Amazon I noticed Night and Day, another one I hadn’t read. As much as I enjoy Spenser, I really like the more thoughtful Jesse Stone and his adventures in Paradise.

This is a big one. Jenn leaves Jesse, moving to New York for a new job. Of course it’s a job that comes from another man, who she will be living with in New York. It’s a hard twist and Jesse handles it as you expect. That is most of what I got out of this book, where Jesse works through the issues with Dix as he calmly explains to Sunny, Molly, and others that Jenn is in New York with another man.

The main detective story in the book is a peeping tom that wanders around Paradise at night. Early on we have chapters from his point of view, but once he’s chased off a few times, he escalates to trapping single women during the day and making them undress before he takes a picture. Jesse narrows this down fairly quickly to someone and the latter part of the book is taken with chasing this guy down. It’s a similar story to a couple of the other Paradise novels where they figure out the criminal in the middle and then need to trap him.

The funny story in the book intertwines here. The principal at the school made a bunch of girls at the high school lift their skirts before a dance and checked their panties. Presumably because she wanted them to not embarrass themselves. In reality we work through the book and realize that she’s trying to get the attention of her husband It mixes with the other stories as the wife pretends the peeper attacked her, and because her relationship with her husband is parallel to Jesse and Jen.

It’s an interesting book, and a great twist in Jesse’s relationship. With Mr. Parker passing away recently, I’m sad that there will only be one more Jesse Stone novel.