Book Review: Stranger in Paradise by Robert B. Parker

This is the newest installment in Parker's Jesse Stone series.  Stone is the chief of Police in Paradise, MA.  He is a former LA cop that struggles with alcoholism, is still in love with his ex-wife, and had a professional baseball career crushed when he got injured in the minor leagues.

This novel focuses on what happens in Paradise when a hit man comes to town and turns everything upside down.  The hit man known mostly as Crow claims to be an Apache Warrior. He is handsome, intelligent, sexy and deadly.  He "likes women" so he doesn't kill them, but frequently seduces them.  His job is to locate the wife and daughter of a gangster from Florida.  They ran away and are hiding Paradise.  He finds them easy enough, but when his employer instructs him to kill the mother and bring the daughter to Florida, he decides not to follow orders, after all he likes women.

Paradise is an elite community next to a poor community overrun with Hispanic gangs and crime. These gangs get involved in the story line. Jesse Stone and Crow team up to save the mother and daughter and foil the gang members and  Florida gangster. Stone and Crow are wary of each other, but respectful of each other's skills.  Stone uses tactics that are not strictly legal and Crow kills several people without hesitation.

Okay, I am Parker fan and yet I was disappointed in this book.  The stranger reminded me too much of Parker's character Hawk from another series.  There were times when I was confused that somehow Hawk had shown up in this book.  Basically Parker changed his name from Hawk to Crow and his race from African-American to Apache Indian.  The story itself was fine, but not exactly spellbinding. It was an easy read and I was say it was like fast food.  Went down quickly, but left me less than thrilled.  If you like Parker, check it out of the library, it would make a good beach read.