‘Night And Day’ – The Panty Police And The Night Hawk

Night and Day (2009)BOOK DETAILS/INFORMATION:

Night And Day is the eighth Jesse Stone novel written by Robert B. Parker.  It was originally published in 2009.

Preceded By: Stranger In Paradise
Followed By: Split Image

PLOT SUMMARY:

Jesse is back at it again being Chief the only way he knows how to.  The high school principal Betsy Ingersoll takes it upon herself to be the “panty police” with her students checking to make sure that her student’s undergarments are “proper”.  The students and their parents are obviously outraged and come to Jesse who proceeds to investigate.  He knows that Ms. Ingersoll is in the wrong and wants to teach her a lesson.  With Parker’s novels however there is always a twist — Betsy Ingersoll happens to be married to the managing partner of the largest law firm in the state.  Naturally he wants the story to go away and tells Jesse the way it’s going to be.  Jesse doesn’t take kindly to being told what to do and the story progresses from there.

While all of this is going on, a new threat has come down upon Paradise – The Night Hawk.  He’s essentially a “peeping tom” who’s watching women of Paradise.  Things escalate when he decides that watching isn’t enough.  While Jesse quickly learns who the Hawk is he’s determined to catch him in the act and put an end to the terror that he’s bringing down on the town.

The story of Jesse & Jenn is always present as Jenn has decided once again to take off for her career.  As always there is a man involved (who’s not Jesse) and Jesse must determine how much longer he’ll tolerate playing second fiddle to Jenn’s career.

COMMENTARY:

I normally try to read all of Parker’s work right when it comes out in hardcover.  For some reason I missed Sea Change so I had just finished that when Night And Day was released.  The only reason I bring that up is that this was the second Stone book in a row that I read that deal with some sort of sexual deviant behavior.  The “swinging” that goes on in this story is not a crucial piece to the story (other than to tell some of the Night Hawk’s back story) but it caught me as odd that Parker would go into such similar territory in two books only year apart.  That said, I might not have even noticed it had I not just read Sea Change just prior.

It’s been a while since I’ve read Stranger In Paradise (at the time of this review) so I don’t quite remember where the relationship between Sunny Randall and Jesse left off but I was very glad to see her here once again (and very sad to hear that her dog Rosie has died as that normally means that Dr. Parker has experienced a similar loss).  I also LOVE the character of Spike so I’m very thrilled to see him set up shop in Paradise.  It does worry me though to think about the long term prospects of BOTH the Stone and Randall novels.  With all three characters in once location I wonder how much longer two distinct series will be necessary.

Also perhaps because it’s been a while since I’ve read a Stone novel, but I noticed that Jesse is back to drinking quite a bit.  I personally like this character flaw as I’ve never seen anyone describe drinking with the gusto that Parker does.

Just with Parker’s Spenser novels, I’ll read every single Stone novel that comes out.  I simply cannot get enough of Parker’s writing style and I think because Jesse is a “newer” character in relation to Spenser we have not yet begun to see some of the patterns with Jesse that we do with Spenser.  That, combined with what happens in the last paragraph of this book really leaves me looking forward to the next Paradise tale. Pick up your copy of Night And Day on Amazon today.

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