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Split Image (Jesse Stone) |  | Author: Robert B. Parker
Creator: James Naughton
Publisher: Random House Audio
Category: Book
List Price: $32.00
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as of 7/29/2010 20:17 CDT details
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Seller: letsgo2it
Rating:  57 reviews
Sales Rank: 308307
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 4
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 5.9 x 5.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 0739357484
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780739357484
ASIN: 0739357484
Publication Date: February 23, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The body in the trunk was just the beginning.
Turns out the stiff was a foot soldier for local tough guy Reggie Galen, now enjoying a comfortable “retirement” with his beautiful wife, Rebecca, in the nicest part of Paradise. Living next door are Knocko Moynihan and his wife, Robbie, who also happens to be Rebecca’s twin. But what initially appears to be a low-level mob hit takes on new meaning when a high-ranking crime figure is found dead on Paradise Beach.
Stressed by the case, his failed relationship with his ex-wife, and his ongoing battle with the bottle, Jesse needs something to keep him from spinning out of control. When private investigator Sunny Randall comes into town on a case, she asks for Jesse’s help. As their professional and personal relationships become intertwined, both Jesse and Sunny realize that they have much in common with both their victims and their suspects—and with each other.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 57
 Fascinating Conflicts and Resolutions March 14, 2010
Professor Donald Mitchell (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 96,000 Helpful Votes Globally)
26 out of 27 found this review helpful
"He also split the rock, and the waters gushed out." -- Isaiah 48:21
I held off starting this book until I had absorbed and become accustomed to the news of Robert B. Parker's passing. Rather than anticipating that there would be dozens more Parker novels coming soon, I realized that the time had come to more carefully examine and consider the last few novels in the editorial pipeline.
Split Image was a pleasant surprise for me in several dimensions. Although the cover refers to this as a Jesse Stone novel, there's quite a lot of Sunny Randall in the book, too, as she pursues a private investigation in Paradise, that well-known home and haunt for mobbed-up crooks and moral-appearing bad guys. Their interactions are rich in this series, and Split Image is one of the best books for bringing out the foundations for the mutual attractions and hurdles.
In addition, Mr. Parker has handled a sexually tinged story with much more deftness than he usually did in the past. Sometimes his novels seem to be more like exercises in voyeurism concerning the vulgar than they are stories about human sexuality in all of its dimensions.
To me the best police procedural and crime novels start with an unusual premise . . . and then play out in unexpected ways. Here the premise is one that I would never have come up with in a million years: Two mobsters who don't care that much for one another marry twins and live next door to one another in (where else?) Paradise.
In many police procedurals, you know exactly what to expect from the beginning. Mr. Parker rewards us with a plot that has more surprises to keep things interesting than we have any right to expect. I liked that.
In some of Mr. Parker's novels from recent years, the psychological element is so large in the book that you might feel like you are in a therapy session yourself rather than reading about crime, criminals, and the idealists (Don Quixote's in disguise) Mr. Parker likes to set after those who need punishment. In Split Image, that element adds to the story and doesn't weigh too heavily.
How would I characterize this story? Everything works together in a nice balance. If I hadn't read the book, I would have been skeptical that there was still a novel to be written about Jesse Stone that would be this satisfying.
Bravo, Mr. Parker! I'm sorry you aren't here to read this praise. I'm going to miss your amazing dialogue and your ability to craft unusual stories such as this one that leave me hungry for more.
Good, solid Parker February 25, 2010
avoraciousreader (Somewhere in the Space Time Continuum)
12 out of 16 found this review helpful
Split Image: A Jesse Stone Novel
Robert B Parker 2010
Good, solid Parker 5*
If you've liked the recent Jesse Stone novels such as Night and Day, this one should appeal to you as well, mellow and thoughtful as opposed to exciting and suspenseful. Jesse's personal relations and thoughts (and those of Sunny Randall who also figures prominently in the book) seem equally as important as the actual criminal cases and investigative work, and even those are remarkably low key for a double gang-land homicide, religious cults and abductions.
Jesse's case shows up in the trunk of an abandoned Cadillac, the corpse of one Petrov Ognowski, a small time strong-arm man who worked for Reggie Galen, a mob boss supposedly retired to Paradise ... right next door to another major thug, Knocko Moynihan. When Jesse visits Reggie and Knocko, he is astonished to find them maried to two beautiful and charming women, identical twins, both seemingly devoted to their husbands ... which triggers a fit of jealous depression when he compares them to his ex, Jenn. The plot only thickens when another mobster is found dead in Paradise, and others disappear from the Galen and Moynihan enclaves, and, in typical Parker fashion, Jesse digs into the past of the lovely twins, revealing that not all is well in Paradise.
Sunny Randall, meanwhile, visits Jesse to ask a bit of help with her current case, finding a young woman who has joined a religious group called the Bond of the Renewal, which has set up shop in Paradise, and encourage her to come home. The Renewal seems relatively straightforward, Cheryl DeMarco there by her own choice, and indeed the Concord-dwelling parents far wackier and more sinister. Of course not all is well in this corner of Paradise either.
Jesse, as usual, skirmishes with the Demon Rum (ok, Scotch), even loses a round or two, and vents to his wise ex-cop therapist, Dix. Sunny, meanwhile, runs off to her own wise therapist ... someone named Susan Silverman who practices in Cambridge. Since Spenser isn't dragged into this one, Sunny takes over the role of commenting on how beautiful and "put together" Susan is, and reminding us that she has a Harvard Ph.D. They both have breakthroughs, or at least insights (so why do they still need to go back after all these years?), and discuss their respective therapies with each other amidst occasional canoodling. For the Renewal case has brought the two together again (as foreshadowed in Night and Day). They end on a tentative note, still haunted by the ghosts of Jesse's Jenn and Sunny's mobster ex, Richie. Alas, we'll never know whether they can find a relationship in the here and now, burying those ghosts, or will continue floundering in the Paradise tides.
I could give this 4 or 5 *s, but will round up as a farewell gesture.
Over 277 Enjoyable Pages June 8, 2010
Bookreporter.com (New York, New York)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
There always has been something very satisfying about finishing a new Robert B. Parker novel, all of which are so complete and satisfying. But alas, there is a sadness that accompanies the last page of SPLIT IMAGE, the first book released since his death in January. Indeed, while I am sure it was not done intentionally, the novel reads like a valediction for the two non-Spenser protagonists created in the 1990s: Jesse Stone, the chief of police for a small Massachusetts town, and Sunny Randall, the female private eye from Boston.
SPLIT IMAGE is also one of those titles that perfectly reflects what the book is about. Years ago, the late, great mystery author Ed McBain told me that he always tried to get titles that worked on multiple levels. So, for instance, ICE could be something you fall on in the winter, but it could also be slang for stolen diamonds or killing somebody. In SPLIT IMAGE, Jesse and Sunny, who had a brief affair in Beverly Hills many years ago, find themselves involved in two perplexing but unrelated cases in Paradise. Jesse's case starts when a soldier for a retired mobster is bumped off, and he soon finds that the mobster just happens to live next door to another mobster, one who is not so retired. They are not rivals as far as anybody knows. As a matter of fact, they are both married to sisters who are identical twins, hence a "split image."
Meanwhile, Sunny has been hired by the parents of a young woman who has run off to join a quasi-religious group in a town called "The Renewal." The group seems harmless enough, but they just might have a split image of their own --- and it could be far more sinister. Sunny is stifled when the young woman is apparently willing and happy to stay with the group while her parents are considerably shady and ready to break the law.
The genius of Robert B. Parker is that he was far more than a mystery writer. These books work on different levels. Indeed, as another great mystery writer, Lawrence Block, pointed out to me, Parker was writing romance rather than realism. The Stone and Randall books are not police procedurals or "whodunits" in the traditional sense. They are about deeply flawed protagonists searching for something greater than their lives and incapable of being anything other than knights-errant.
Chief Stone is a functioning alcoholic; he says in this book, "I made chief because the selectman at the time wanted a drunk they could control." And his problem with alcohol in the series stems from the torch he has carried for his ex-wife, Jenn. Unlike earlier books, Jenn does not make an appearance here. But when Jesse interviews the mobsters and meets their loving, attentive identical wives, he goes on a bender and ends up "passed out from strong drink." His faithful aid, Molly, covers up for him.
Sunny has had problems of her own in the past with her love for ex-husband Richie, who is now remarried and has a child. Sunny is far more in control than Jesse when she comes to him for help with her case. In fact, she goes around using the name "Stone" as an alias in her undercover work, perhaps trying it on for size like a young girl in love might do. She tells Jesse, "I think more highly of you than you think of yourself."
Again with the split image reference, Parker shows us two characters who are the split image of one another, circling carefully around, nursing their past wounds and looking for a possible new start. And as with the Spenser novels, there are multiple visits to the psychologist's and therapist's office in this book, with Sunny's shrink being none other than the love of Spenser's life, Dr. Susan Silverman. Fictional Boston, it turns out, is a small world indeed.
Has any mystery writer ever referred to modern psychiatry and analysis more than Parker? This is yet another thing that differentiates Parker from the hard-boiled, noir authors on which he did his doctoral dissertation. In noir, the protagonists can identify and even bravely battle their internal demons. But fate has destined them to fail, even if it is ultimately a heroic failure. Classic noir is existential to the core. Parker was far too optimistic to be a noir writer, and perhaps that was the secret of his success. Readers liked Spenser, Jesse and Sunny; they wanted them to succeed and wanted to believe that happy endings were still possible.
If SPLIT IMAGE is the last time we will read about Jesse and Sunny, readers will not be disappointed or saddened by the ending as this just might be the best of the Jesse Stone novels. And it is certainly Parker at his best, with 67 tightly written chapters spread over 277 enjoyable pages. As a novelist, I have been constantly amazed over the years by his ability to write cinematic, character-driven chapters of just four pages each. As a writer, that is not easy to do. The narrative discipline required to do that is remarkable. Robert B. Parker was able to do it every time out. Read SPLIT IMAGE, and you will see that we have lost a great writer. But the work lives on forever.
Still the master March 2, 2010
W. P. Strange (Williamstown, MA United States)
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
The passing of Robert Parker is truly a sad event for the fans of both Spenser and Jesse Stone. "Split Image" shows Parker still at the top of his game. A master of snappy dialogue and careful plotting that is never over written gives his fans an experience he has been providing for more than three decades. Knowing that there are still a few manuscripts left in the pipeline is little consolation.
"Split Image" should not be missed by mystery/ detective fiction. A great reading experience for a late night story time that includes two separate mysteries that need Jesse's attention, so Sunny Randall makes another appearance to help him along, and to renew their romance. Good time.
Split Image March 17, 2010
Bette Bieritz
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Robert B. Parker is another of my favorite writers. I have read all of his books. I am sad that he died recently, and this is probably the last of his books. It was an enjoyable read. I love Jesse Stone and was glad he gave up on his exwife Jen.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 57
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