- Title: Stone Cold
- wiki: link
Stone Sunday takes us north to the sleepy town of Paradise, Massachusetts and the fourth of Robert B. Parker‘s novels featuring Police Chief Jesse Stone. Stone Cold is similar to Trouble in Paradise in we do get a couple at the heart of the story, however this time the pair aren’t part of a heist crew but serial killers who get off on stalking and killing their victims. Wealthy, bored, and sharing the same murderous fetish, Brianna and Anthony Lincoln shoot down multiple victims in the city until finally targeting Jesse Stone.
Although he identifies the pair as the killers fairly early in the investigation, Jesse has no proof but he becomes even more certain after the pair murder Abby Taylor on her way home from a night with Jesse. Choosing to lean into their neuroses, he befriends them, even sharing details about the case, which titillates the couple even further and pushes them into choosing Jesse as their next victim. Along with his night with Abby, Jesse also continues to spend time with Marcy Campbell and has a short affair with Rita Fiore, but by the end of the novel he is back with Jenn as the pair attempt things one more time.
The B-story involves the gang rape of a 16 year-old girl by a group of well-to-do high school students. The case becomes Molly’s obsession, and she and Jesse work to get confessions from the boys by getting some leverage and pitting them against each other. Although the three are charged, a deal gets them nothing more than community service. However, Jesse does arrange for it to be served with him doing whatever menial labor needed is needed in the station offering only a Pyrrhic victory as the girl and her family leave town hoping to start fresh somewhere other than a place that, for them, was far from Paradise.
It’s a bloody book in terms of victims close to Jesse with Abby being targeted by the killers and Anthony D’Angelo dies in a failed sting inside the Paradise Mall where Jesse was the couple’s intended victim. His need to catch the pair on his own only goes so far, and after they flee, he follows clues to track them to Toronto allowing locals there to arrest them, showing up for one final confrontation allowing him to take a bit of anger out on the pair before closing the case for good.
The book is notable for Jesse’s final drunken night, his stalking and fantasy about killing Jenn’ current fling (which helps him realize how close he is to the edge), and Jesse choosing to give up up alcohol. It would also be the first film adaptation starring Tom Selleck, although its plot does offer significant changes to the story including removing the mall scene completely.