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Book Review of Stone Cold (Jesse Stone, Bk 4)

Stone Cold  (Jesse Stone, Bk 4)
Helpful Score: 2


Paradise, Massachusetts, police chief JEsse Stone returns, tracking the path of a pair of thrill killers.

Jesse Stone has a problem no officer of the law likes to face: Dead bodies keep appearing, but clues do not. A man takes his dog out for a run on the beach, only to be discovered hours later -- with two holes in his chest. A woman drives her Volvo to the store to do some grocery shopping, and is then found dead, her body crumpled behind her loaded shopping cart. A commuter takes a shortcut home from the train, and never makes it back to his house.

Hunting down a serial killer is difficult and dangerous in any town, but in a town like Paradise, where the selectmen and the media add untold pressures, Jesse feels considerable heat. Already walking an emotional tightrope, he stumples; he's spending too much time with the bottle, and with his ex-wife--neither of which helps him, or the case. And the harder these outside forces push against him, the more Jesse retreats into himself, convinced--despite all the odds--that it's up to him alone to stop the killing.

As tough, clear-eyed, and sardonic as Jesse Stone himself, this is the Grand Master working at the peak of his powers.