After being kicked out of the LAPD, Jesse Stone's future looks bleak, until he is given another chance as the police chief in a small New England town. However, the town turns out to be rife with homicides, maddened militiamen and crazed psychopaths.

When a visiting actress becomes the subject of a death threat, Jesse and the rest of the Paradise police department go on high alert. And when Jesse witnesses a horrifying collision caused by a distracted teenage driver, the political repercussions of her arrest bring him into conflict with the local selectmen, the DA, and some people with very deep pockets.

Investigating allegations of lewd conduct on the part of the local junior high principal, police chief Jesse Stone finds efforts to bring the woman to justice thwarted by a high-powered attorney.

The town of Paradise receives a tragic shock when the mayor is discovered dead, his body lying in a shallow grave on a property on the lake. It's ostensibly suicide, but Jesse's has his doubts... especially because the piece of land where the man was found is the subject of a contentious and dodgy land deal. Two powerful moguls are fighting over the right to buy and develop the prime piece of real estate, and one of them has brought in a hired gun,...