New Year, New Book

Robert B. Parker's BURIED SECRETS hits shelves on Feb. 4

Author

Christopher Farnsworth
January 03, 2025

Happy New Year. We’re now live in 2025, which increasingly sounds like science fiction to me. The future got here faster than I ever expected.

But the good news is, I’ve got a new book coming out in just over a month: ROBERT B. PARKER’S BURIED SECRETS, which is the 22nd entry in the Jesse Stone series and my first shot at the character.

I’m currently working on the next book in the series, so I think that means they liked my take on Parker’s iconic cop. At least I hope so. I’m having a lot of fun with him.

For those who don’t know Jesse Stone, he’s the chief of police of the wealthy seaside town of Paradise, Massachusetts. He was a promising professional baseball player until a career-ending injury, and then became an officer with the LAPD’s elite Robbery-Homicide Division.

But Jesse was also a drunk in a bad marriage. A series of mistakes led him to be fired, and he took the only job he could find, running the tiny Paradise Police Department.

Over the years, he’s saved the town and more lives than he can count, and won the loyalty and friendship of Deputy Chief Molly Crane and Detective Luther “Suitcase” Simpson. He’s finally gotten sober, and he means to stay that way.

That’s where I pick up with him. This is what happens next:

Chief of Police Jesse Stone is on his way home from a long shift when a call comes in for a welfare check on an elderly resident of the wealthy seaside town of Paradise, Massachusetts. Inside a house packed with junk and trash is a man’s dead body. It’s a sad, lonely end, but nothing criminal . . . until Jesse finds the photos of murder victims strewn around the corpse, on top of a treasure trove of $2 million in cash.

Jesse takes on the case and finds a trail leading to an aging mobster who will do whatever it takes to keep the past from coming to light. Before long, Jesse has a price on his head as hit men converge on Paradise to take back the cash and destroy any remaining evidence. But the real danger might be coming from inside his own department. Jesse Stone must unearth the truth buried under the wreckage of a dead man’s life . . . before he winds up in the ground himself.

I like to say that Spenser is Parker’s perfect knight: the man who always knows what is right, and bears the weight of doing it without fail. Jesse, on the other hand, knows what’s right, but has trouble carrying that weight at times. It would break most of us, to always do the right thing. Jesse does the best he can with what he’s got.

That makes him interesting to write. And I hope it makes him interesting for you to read as well.

Stone is a stand-up cop who puts his life on the line for the town he loves, and his dealings with friends and colleagues are fun to witness: “I’m the chief. I’m supposed to tell you what to do,” he tells Molly Crane, his deputy chief. “It’s adorable that you think that,” she replies… This is Farnsworth’s first entry in the series created by Robert Parker, and fans will be pleased.

So, Paradise isn’t paradise, and the Parker legacy lives on.

If you’d like to preorder the book, you can find the links here to get it from any online retailer or your local bookstore.

And I’d also be incredibly happy if you asked your local public library to pick up a copy. I will never get tired of seeing my name on a library bookshelf.

EVENTS

But if you want to catch the live act of a novelist — and who wouldn’t? — I’m going to be reading and signing books at my hometown store Diesel on Wednesday, February 5 at 6:30 pm. 

And hopefully a couple more places, but I’ll let you know how that pans out.

WHAT I’VE BEEN READING

There are too many good books out there and never enough time. Here’s what I’ve finished lately if you’re looking for additions to your TBR pile.

  • 300 Arguments by Laura Manguso — 300 short observations, aphorisms, or arguments from the author of LIARS, each one potent enough to make you put the book down and think hard for a while.

  • Concerning the Future of Souls by Joy Williams — Another series of short pieces, each one about a different soul collected by the Angel of Death, with occasional interruptions from Satan as they discuss the nature of God and humanity.

  • The Long Fall (The Leonid McGill series) by Walter Mosley (re-read) — Walter Mosley is a fantastic writer across all genres. But my favorite character he created is Leonid McGill, a formerly crooked PI now trying to seek redemption while still managing the obligations of his former life. I hope someday to see Jeffrey Wright play him in a prestige TV series or movie.

  • Pronto (Raylan Givens, Book 1) by Elmore Leonard (re-read) — I thought I’d read the original Raylan Givens stories again, since we’re introducing our youngest to the TV show “Justified.” Those are our parenting choices and I feel pretty good about them.

  • The Power Fantasy by Kieron Gillen and Caspar Wijngaard — The smartest and most interesting comic book series I read in 2024. A book about superhumans where the fate of the world depends on them not fighting. And it’s more tense and exciting than I thought possible.

That’s it for now. But as promised, there will be more shameless self-promotion coming. As always, thank you for reading.

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