Robert B Parker's Fallout features the fan favorite Paradise Police Chief Jesse Stone as he again faces the many challenges that seem to come everyday. In Book #21 of this series, a young man's suspicious death and the murder of the former police chief will open many secrets that the owners thought safe, bring Jesse and his officers under fire.
Mike Lupica has done an excellent job of maintaining the Jesse Stone series since Parker's death.

I.read someone mention the extra use.of.curse words and I picked up on it too. Thinking Jesss doesn't talk like that
Didn't bother me was just a side thoight wondering why the change

Still wonderful as always
Thank you for the opportunity

I imagine it’s hard to take over such a masterful series such as this but Mike Lupica has done well with it. I thoroughly enjoyed this one and can’t wait for the next. Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for this copy for review

Death rocks the town of Paradise once more when the body of the star high-school baseball player is discovered at the bottom of a bluff the day after winning their biggest game. For the police department, the death hits extra hard as the youth is their colleague Suitcase Simpson’s own nephew. The investigation encounters resistance on every side.

When the former Paradise police chief, Charlie Farrell, is found murdered in his home after looking into scam calls that have been targeting the elderly, Jesse finds himself divided between the two cases. It isn’t long before danger appears at Jesse’s door as he tries to unravel friend from foe and truth from lies.

In Robert B. Parker’s Fallout Mike Lupica pens that classic Jesse Stone tale with its slower pace and villains that remind you of ones you’ve met before simply with new names. Nothing particularly new or unexpected occurs, but that’s exactly the appeal and why I keep returning to this series. They provide that nostalgic feel, reminiscent of Parker’s original books, which I reread to this day. Twenty-five years after the first book released, there is something timeless about these mysteries and the reason they keep working.

Suitcase Simpson has been a favorite character from day one, so having this case hit him hard, did the same to me. I loved returning to Paradise. After all these years, it’s like coming home and spending time with dear friends. The chocolate factory was a fun little addition to the town. Returning fans will enjoy this latest installment, while newcomers won’t have a problem following as the book easily stands alone. I am now waiting for the next time I can join Jesse, Suitcase, and Molly. After all, this is Paradise so trouble is undoubtedly headed their way.

Thanks to Netgalley, for an ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Jesse is having to deal with a complicated, interlocking set of murders in Paradise, and having to work out connections that are not obviously clear. Fortunately, as is becoming more and more common in this series, he's calling on lots of characters from earlier books and from the Spenser series to help him out. Both law enforcement folks and criminal characters are getting involved in helping him resolve his cases.

While I enjoy this series, it seems to be a bit over-reliant on "help from my friends." Jesse spends too much time agonizing over alcohol, and seems to relying on everyone else to solve the crimes. I wish he would return to his previous competence, rather than just asking everyone he knows to figure it out for him!

Even with this, the books in the series are fun to read, although I think of them more as a team effort, not a Jesse Stone investigation!

Fallout is a quick and enjoyable read. Mike Lupica does a great job of capturing Robert B. Parker's voice in his writing style, and he does a great job with the character of Jesse Stone. This book hooked me from the first page, and although I pretty much saw the end coming I still loved the ride to get there. I look forward to more Jesse stories!

Lupica understands Parker’s voice and characters and, essentially, his fans. Another winner with fast pacing, familiar faces and just enough fan service.

Jesse Stone has two mysteries to solve. The death of a star high school athlete after a celebration for a big win. And the murder of a mentor who was investigating phone calls made by people scamming the elderly. Many characters in this book were in previous Jesse stone books. While I did enjoy the book, I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had read some of the earlier books and was familiar with the characters and their stories.

I thank NetGalley for the advanced reader’s copy they gifted me with in exchange for my honest review.

This case is personal. Suitcase’s nephew, a promising young athlete, has been found dead on the rocks below a cliff. Now the team has to figure out if it was accidental, murder, or suicide. I have read most of this series, and found the writing in this one a bit better. The dialogue is more course, which I found more realistic. The style was still a bit choppy, but that follows Parker’s originals.

Jesse Stone is back, but does he really need to be? That answer may lay with each individual reader.

Stone is confronted early with two suspicious deaths; the apparent suicide of a promising athlete, and soon after the murder of a mentor. These engage him into looking into the circumstances and solving the mysteries.

On the good side, Mike Lupica, who first did stellar work in resurrecting the Sonny Randall series, does a fine job in writing for the Jesse Stone one as well. The mystery is solid, modern and kept me interested through the end.

Now, what I can do without has also to do with how well the author mirrors Robert B. Parker’s talents. The original writer got into the habit of having characters from other novels in and out of this series moving through each book. Lupica does the same. However, with characters added since new writers took over it becomes a literary parade of characters, way too many in my humble opinion, that often added little to the story except for increasing the page count.

On the one hand it does affirm to the reader that the once quaint area of Paradise is truly growing but it really was too much, unless there is an accompanying bingo chart where people can check off which characters come to visit.

For what could have been a terse tale, the elongated text bogged the story down for me. I love Parker’s initial characters and I for one will keep reading these if only to “visit” them! For readers like me, I recommend this book which, despite what I see as flaws, is a satisfying entry in the series.

If, however, you are not a Jesse Stone aficionado I suggest you go back to any one of the books in the original canon as written by Robert B. Parker.

Lupica seems to have found his stride in the latest installment in the Jesse Stone series with our intrepid Chief investigating not one but two murders in the not so quiet town pf Paradise. Are the two cases related? Jesse will have to multitask to find out. I must admit I'm somewhat ambivalent about the constant crossover between this and the Sunny Randall series. While it's nice to see familiar characters, it seems a little forced and I'm left to wonder did they really add anything to the overall story.

Robert B. Parker’s Fallout by Mike Lupica.
For me, this series has had its ups and downs and this one was kind of a flop. Some of it was easy to figure out and the big twist was a bit of a cliché.
Also the author needs to get past Jesse making such a big deal about not being able to still say or think certain things about women. Is Jesse supposed to be ninety? No insult meant to forward thinking people in their nineties. It is still okay to say fisherman’s sweater by the way. It’s a knitting pattern not a social statement.
I like Jesse better when he is with Sunny Randall. Get them back together please.

Robert B. Parker's Fallout by Mike Lupica is a fast and entertaining read. I have to admit to not being as familiar with the character of Jesse Stone as I am with some of Robert B. Parker's other characters, namely Spencer, but I have to say that from this book Mike Lupica may be the author chosen after Robert B. Parker's death who best captures the vibe and voice of the characters.

"When two seemingly unconnected mysterious deaths occur on his watch, police chief Jesse Stone must pull out all the stops to unravel the truth and stop a killer from striking again." Is a fairly basic plot and I figured out the who done it and why early on but Mr Lupica's characterization and pacing make it a page turner. I may have to become more familiar with both the character and the author.

Thank you to #NetGalley, #PenguinGroup and Mike Lupica for the ARC of #RobertBParkersFallout.

A jogger finds a body on the rocks below a cliff. The Paradise police soon identify the victim as Jack Carlisle, a standout high school shortstop who had seemed destined for the big leagues. Complicating matters is that Jack Carlisle is the nephew of Luther “Suitcase” Simpson, one of Jesse Stone’s detectives. Was it murder or something else? While Jesse and the usual cast of characters try to determine how Carlisle died, more bodies pile up. Former Paradise chief of police Charlie Farrell, one of Stone’s close friends, gets murdered inside his home after he investigates some phone scammers. Jesse has no reason the think a link exists between the deaths, so the Paradise cops investigate them separately, with Stone taking the lead on the Farrell murder for personal reasons. Healy, a former captain with the Massachusetts State Police, lends a hand. Before the police make any actual progress in either case, a wheelchair bound man, an employee at More Chocolate, one of Paradise’s largest concerns and employers, gets found murdered on the same beach as Jack Carlisle. Jesse and the Paradise police cast about, hoping for clues to smack them in the face since it seems there isn’t a competent investigator in the bunch. They even bring in almost everyone Jesse Stone has ever met since he arrived in Paradise to help, from his current girlfriend, a local news reporter, to his ex-girlfriend, private investigator Sunny Randall, to Wilson “Crow” Cromartie, a thug who is now one of Stone’s best friends. But still Stone can’t gain any traction, much less solve any of the suspicious deaths until Molly, now his assistant chief, finally uses her women’s intuition and motherly instincts to figure things out.

While not complex, the plot is convoluted enough since Stone seems virtually clueless and faces multiple investigations he seems powerless to make headway on. Once a very competent murder investigator who arrived in Paradise after being a homicide detective in the LAPD, he now seems incapable of adding 2 + 2 and getting 4. But that should be expected since Jesse spends most of his time chasing women, obsessing over past girlfriends, and white knuckling it a day at a time through his battle with alcoholism. The old Jesse Stone tropes seem old and overused in this book. And the use of outside tips from Boston characters that show up just in the nick of time to help the investigations crawl forward and women’s intuition as the chief crime solving tool seems both gratuitous and unconvincing. After wading through the book, it’s no surprise the only thing close to an exciting sequence comes in the last pages.

Let’s end with a brief look at the use of swearing and profanity in contemporary literature. In recent decades, experts have noticed a decided uptick in the use of more and more swearing and profanity in creative writing. Some authors who use profanity in books believe they are representing the world as it is, and that using profanity makes their writing more authentic and powerful. In this novel, the first f-bombs fell in the fifth chapter and Lucia sprinkled them in copiously to the very end.

Swearing and profanity don’t offend me, except when used in inappropriate situations. I can and to my shame, often do swear like a sailor, probably because I used to be one, not because we now live in a cesspool of vulgarity. But I have a good reason f-bombs spewing from Jesse Stone’s mouth just don’t work. If you’ve read all of Robert B. Parker’s original Jesse Stone novels, as I have, then you would know Parker’s use of swearing and profanity in his writing was sparse indeed. That’s true of both the Jesse Stone and Spenser series. It was so infrequent that it shocked you when he used either. And it wasn’t because times were different back then. It was because Parker didn’t have to drop f-bombs and its variations around thirty-nine times in one book to achieve contemporary authenticity or make his writing powerful. Robert B. Parker wrote so well he didn’t need to use cheap, convenient crutches like swearing and profanity to give the impression that his books were up-to-date and realistic. Dropping f-bombs is not the history of the Jesse Stone character and having him do that makes him seem like a laughable caricature of the true character to grotesque effect. That, along with making him seem incompetent and having him wearing a Boston Red Sox baseball cap, another thing he would never do, only diminished the franchise character of this series.

My recommendation for this one is to skip reading it. As a nod to the book’s baseball theme, it’s a swing and miss.

There are serious problems in Paradise Massachusetts as police chief Jesse Stone has to deal with two deaths that hit close to home: not only is a colleague’s nephew found dead, but Charlie Farrell, friend and former Paradise police chief, is murdered. Are the two deaths connected? Does Charlie’s murder have anything to do with the phone scams he’s been looking into? The phone scam angle is quite timely. Not only do I know of several people that have fallen for such scams, but I can’t even begin to say how many of those scam messages get left on my answering machine every day. They truly drive me crazy. Fallout is fast paced, full of twists, and another excellent entry into the Jesse Stone series. For those that don’t know Fallout is author Mike Lupica’s third Jesse Stone novel and I think it’s his best yet. (Lupica is the third author to work on the series since the passing of series creator Robert B. Parker back in 2010) I’d like to Penguin Group Putnam and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an eARC of Fallout.

https://www.amazon.com/review/RZOME0C58D04J/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

This is Jesse's 21st outing - finally a man! Although he has gone through 4 authors, 3 after the passing of original author Robert B Parker. 2 of which I have loved which, thankfully, includes this, the 4th, Mike Lupica.
It's funny. I have loved (mostly) all of the Jesse Stone books but it was only after I visited Boston that I really started to fully immerse myself into them. I say visited Boston. I mean went to Fenway to see Big Papi in his final year. So, as well as all things Boston, I love all things Sox. And special mention in this book has to go to the author for his nod to the late great Jerry Remy. Also, what with Jesse being a shortstop, I've been waiting for him to mention Bogaerts. Another tick for this book!
Anyway... mentions of Boston and favourite Red Sox players wouldn't really be enough to carry a book. Luckily, the author also includes most of the series characters I have got to know and love (or not!) over the years, and put them in another cracking story. This one starting off with the death of the star high-school shortstop who also happens to be Suit's nephew. It happened on the night of the team's biggest win. During or after a party they held. Accident, misadventure, suicide, or murder. The jury is still out on which one initially. Jesse has only just got started with this investigation - in a limited fashion cos you know - teens, they clam up - when he hears that his predecessor Charlie Farrell has also been murdered. This one definitely being murder. And on the back of a meeting he had with Jesse about phone scams...
And so begins a convoluted investigation for Jesse and his team, assisted by several well known faces and also quite heavily featuring Nell, the local journalist. One which takes them to a very dark place...
Wow - This has to be my best post-Parker book. Lupica has really nailed it all perfectly here. Long term characters remain true to their creator, newbies fit in well, and with a plot that is both interesting and intriguing and which had me running around half the book. I did guess a couple things a tad ahead of time but only just, and nothing I guessed ruined anything else for me.
All in all, this series has definitely found it's home in this new author - now he has three books under his belt I think I can say that. Long may it continue...
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

In the latest Jesse Stone novel, the small town of Paradise is rocked by two deaths. One is the young nephew of Jesse’s colleague and the other is Jesse’s predecessor, former Paradise chief of police, Charlie Farrell. As Jesse’s grapples with both grief and disbelief, he discovers that the former chief was investigating phone scams targeting elderly residents which may have led to his murder. As events unfold Jesse tries to determine if there is a link between the two deaths while trying to prevent a third one.

After the death of Robert B Parker, the Jesse Stone series has continued with the help of several different authors. Fallout is Mike Lupica’s third book in the series and he has produced a well-written and well-plotted novel that does the series proud. I particularly liked the character development, not to mention the well-conceived and executed plot. The dialogue is reminiscent of the earlier books by Parker and it is clear that Mike Lupica is a worthy successor.

I thoroughly enjoyed the twenty-first book in this series and I’m looking forward to Mr Lupica’s next entry.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for providing a copy of this book for review.

I am always ready for a Jesse Stone story. Mike Lupica continues to bring out the best in this series created by Robert B. Parker.
Two murders is what Jesse is trying to figure out. With so many people keeping secrets, he isn’t having a easy time. But, is it ever easy for Jesse? He fights his inner demon of being an alcoholic while trying to go forward in the investigation.
Love the reoccurring characters.
There is humor throughout the story and a big twist at the end.
Definitely recommended to all Jesse Stone lovers.
Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and author for the opportunity to read this book for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

A terrific, albeit tragic, entry in the long running series that just keeps getting better but which is always enjoyable as a standalone. Paradise Chief of Police Jesse Stone finds himself staring at the scotch bottle more than he has in a long time after the death of Suit's nephew, a high school senior and up and coming baseball star and, even worse, the murder of former chief Charlie Farrell. Charlie was onto something about scams of seniors and crypt currency but what? And then there's another murder, this time of a young man who works at the local chocolate company and used a wheelchair. What's with the Boston mob connections? Jesse, his deputy Molly, Suit, and eventually reformed criminal Crow find themselves with two real posers. Jesse's relationship with Nell, the local reporter, is useful to both of them - they have a great back and forth over what each of them will share with the other. Lupica has both Parker's voice and that of Selleck who has played him while deepening him as a character. There are touches of humor as well as pathos and a wow of a twist at the end. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. It's topical, it's entertaining, it's complex, and it's an excellent read.

Mike Lupica does it again! He is the only author that seems to really be able to capture the characters created by Robert Parker. I loved everything about this book - from the first page I couldn't wait to read more. I can't wait to see what is in store for Jesse next.

Thank you #penguingroupputnam and #netgalley for the eARC.