This is my second Robert Parker novel, the first one a Spenser book, and it shares the same terse banter, but without (almost) all the racial remarks (takes place in an almost all-white community, I assume). Maybe there could be happy medium. Anyway, the Jesse Stone character is surprisingly deep and tormented in an accessible way (surprising because I only know the character from being played by Tom Selleck, an I liked Magnum but he wasn't really an everyman) and also suffering from every-woman-in-this-town-is-throwing-themselves-at-me, probably an incurable disease considering the number of books in this series. But I'm interested enough in the soap opera aspects to want to read more.