Lupica, who's been writing the new adventures of Boston private eye Sunny Randall, takes over the Police Chief Jesse Stone franchise most recently handled by Reed Farrel Coleman in Robert B. Parker's The Bitterest Pill (2019). Any questions? Although Jesse recognizes him from an AA meeting, nobody knows the identity of the John Doe fished out of a lake with a bullet in his head. Even after he's identified as Florida horse groom Paul Hutton, nobody can explain what he was doing in Paradise, Massachusetts, or why he took a taxi to the estate of real estate tycoon Whit Cain, incapacitated after a series of strokes. Whit's wife, iron-willed socialite Lily, and their son, privileged heir-apparent Bryce, insist they know nothing about him, and Whit's nurse and gatekeeper, Karina Torres, says she never heard him buzz the gate for admittance. While Jesse labors to figure out whom Hutton came to Paradise to see, his deputy chief Molly Crane's friend Annie Fallon is assaulted after she leaves a local bar, and the incident sends Jesse, galvanized by a series of attacks on himself and his colleagues, back to the gang-rape of Candace Pennington by three of her schoolmates years ago. Ringleader Bo Marino, Kevin Feeney, and Troy Drake all avoided jail sentences because they were minors with fancy lawyers. Is one of them resuming his bad habits and also seeking revenge on the Paradise police force? Though the two cases never converge, either one is strong enough to hook you and keep you hooked. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Edgar finalist Lupica captured the spirit and feel of the late Robert P. Parker's Sunny Randall novels in Blood Feud and Grudge Match, but this novel featuring Parker's Paradise, Mass., police chief Jesse Stone is strictly by-the-numbers. When a man is found in a lake, shot in the back of the head, Stone, a recovering alcoholic, is shocked to recognize him as Paul, whom he met in passing the night before at an AA meeting. As Stone and his number two, Molly Crane, probe who Paul is, they each come under attack: Stone from a shooter; Molly from an assailant from a knife. Lupica pulls his punches, however, as Stone and Molly avoid serious harm purely through chance. The routine investigation into the murder and the assaults fails to engage, and the prose doesn't meet Parker's standard ("She had a heart as big as the ocean, and was tough enough to clean up Afghanistan all by herself"). Lupica does nothing to develop the major continuity change Reed Farrel Coleman introduced to the franchise--giving Stone a previously unknown adult son who is pursuing a career in law enforcement. This is a disappointing offering from an author who's capable of better. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM Partners. (Sept.)