A former LAPD detective named Jesse Stone, who was fired for drinking on the job, relocates to the quiet town of Paradise, Massachusetts, in the movies based on the detective books written by Robert B. Parker, who is also known for creating the Spenser series about a private investigator.
Despite showing up to his interview for the position of Paradise’s top officer while under the influence of alcohol, he is employed right away. The council leader believes that Stone won’t be as perceptive and will therefore fail to notice any of his shady actions. Of course, he’s mistaken; Stone’s inquiries would soon reveal the seedy underbelly of the seemingly bucolic community, including its ties to organized crime, institutional corruption, and the Boston mob.
After the 2005 premiere of CBS’s Stone Cold adaption, eight more movies starring Selleck as Stone Cold have been made. Most of them are adapted from Parker’s stories, however, Selleck and Michael Brandman wrote the scripts for the later films. Although Selleck stated earlier this year that he is still working on a story for a possible 10th movie, the ninth film, Lost in Paradise, debuted on the Hallmark Channel in 2015.
Jesse Stone films: how to watch them chronologically?
We have a comprehensive list of movies arranged in the right order for you to peruse if you’re interested in fully immersing yourself in the Paradise universe.
- Jesse Stone: Night Passage (2006)
Night Passage follows Stone as he travels from Los Angeles (after being fired as a homicide investigator for drinking on the job) to Paradise, a small village on the Massachusetts coast. The story is based on Parker’s first novel in the series. The corrupt council leader of Paradise, aware of Stone’s drinking problem, hires him as head of police because he believes Stone will be lenient and turn a blind eye to his money laundering activities.
- Jesse Stone: Stone Cold (2005)
When a body is found on the beach, shot twice in the heart with a.22 caliber pistol, the normally peaceful hamlet of Paradise is rocked. Two additional bodies turn up soon after, also murdered in the same way. Stone, who is looking into the rape of a teen girl as well, begins to piece together a suspect profile by comparing information from the gun register with that of a red pickup seen fleeing the scene.
- Jesse Stone: Death in Paradise (2006)
As Stone moves on to his next case, he looks into the drowning death of a young woman whose body is found in a lake. She was pregnant, and her blood contained alcohol and a muscle relaxant when she passed away, according to an autopsy. After finding a ring with the victim’s initials on it, Stone and his coworker Luther Simpson are able to piece together the victim’s identity as high school student Billie Bishop, who had been kicked out of her family’s house due to her changing behavior and declining academic performance.
- Jesse Stone: Sea Change (2007)
Stone receives a list of unsolved crimes in his area. The death of a bank teller who had been held hostage during a robbery in 1992 prompts him to reopen the case.
They visit the scene where the body was discovered and find what appear to be the gunman’s clothes covered in marks consistent with a gunshot wound, evidence that shows this case is far more complex than the police had initially thought.
- Jesse Stone: Thin Ice (2009)
Captain Healy of the State Police is assaulted. Stone begins looking into the incident, which doesn’t sit well with the city council because they ask why he doesn’t spend more time handling profitable parking tickets and speeding penalties.
- Jesse Stone: No Remorse (2010)
Stone has been suspended from his position as chief of police in Paradise and is forbidden to have any contact with his former coworkers. This has caused great alarm among Gammon and Healy. Stone is hired as a private consultant by the Boston police after a string of murders in a parking lot. The first victim, he discovers, was connected to a Boston mobster named Gino Fish, who has surfaced in earlier inquiries. When he’s not on the case up in Boston, Stone also digs into a string of attacks at a local convenience store.
- Jesse Stone: Innocents Lost (2011)
Stone was forced out of his position this time. In spite of his lack of official police status, Stone becomes embroiled in not one but two murder probes. One includes a buddy’s death that the new police chief has characterized as a suicide without further investigation, and the other finds him working with an old friend, Healy, as a consultant for the Massachusetts State Police on a murder and robbery where Healy has reservations regarding the primary suspect’s guilt.
- Jesse Stone: Benefit of the Doubt (2012)
After the unexplained deaths of Butler and one of his policemen in a car bombing, Carter Hansen, the town’s mayor, reinstates Stone as acting police chief. He quickly realizes that Hathaway, Hansen’s predecessor and a recurring character in a few episodes, seems to be aware of the death before Hansen was formally informed of it.
- Jesse Stone: Lost in Paradise (2015)
Stone is back at the helm of the Paradise Police Department, but he’s bored by the lack of high-profile cases and agrees to consult for the Massachusetts State Police once again. He has been given access to the files of multiple killings committed in the Greater Boston area.
