“You don’t act like a jerk too often anymore,” Jenn said.

Jesse grinned at her without any happiness in the grin.

“I’m not sure I like the ‘anymore’ part,” he said.

“How about, you never act like a jerk when you’re working,” Jenn said.

“Jesse nodded. “It’s why I work,” he said.

I have a problematic relationship with the late author Robert B. Parker.

I thought his early Spenser books were worthy successors to the high tradition of Hammet and Chandler. But as the series went on, it “evolved” more and more. Spenser became increasingly enlightened in his relationship with his girlfriend, and it seemed to me he let her walk all over him. Also, his contempt for the unenlightened grew more and more apparent. So I dropped the series.

But I’ve enjoyed the Jesse Stone movies, starring Tom Selleck, that I’ve seen on TV. So when a deal for one of the Jesse Stone books, Trouble In Paradise, showed up, I figured I’d give it a shot.

It wasn’t bad.

Jesse, our hero, is settling is as police chief in the coastal Massachusetts town of Paradise. He’s an excellent cop, though not everyone likes him (which proves he’s doing something right). When three teenagers set fire to a homosexual couple’s house, he can’t prove their guilt, but finds a way to make sure they suffer consequences.

Meanwhile, a career criminal named James Macklin is in Paradise with his girlfriend, checking out the possibilities. He has a plan to isolate and loot a gated community on a nearby island, and assembles a team of criminal experts to help out. The stakes are high, and he doesn’t mind a few casualties along the way.

According to my reading, author Parker considered the Selleck TV movies the best adaptations of his books that had been done. I myself was struck by the differences. The Jesse of the books is younger than the one in the movies, and drinks more – he seems to be a maintenance alcoholic relying on his will-power to keep it from affecting his work. I haven’t watched all the movies, but his ex-wife Jenn is always just a voice on the phone in the ones I’ve seen. Here she’s moved to Boston from California, and she and Jesse are cautiously trying to re-establish their relationship, though in a non-exclusive way. This Jesse has no dog (at least yet), and lives in a condominium, not a shoreline house.

For my own part, I detected some of what I’d call the Spenser disease here. Jesse’s relationship with Jenn is so modern and enlightened, with the male in such a supplicant role, that it annoyed me. I don’t think I’ll read any more of these.

I was ambivalent with the ending too (probably because it was ambivalent).

Cautions for language and grownup stuff.