Robert B. Parker's Big Shot

Book 23: A Jesse Stone Novel

by Christopher Farnsworth

Genres: General Fiction; Mystery; Thrillers; Crime Fiction; Suspense

Synopsis

Police Chief Jesse Stone finds himself in the crosshairs of a rich hedge fund manager dead set on making Paradise Jesse’s personal hell, in this latest installment of Robert B. Parker’s beloved series.

Fresh off an acquittal in a multibillion-dollar fraud case, Ramsey Devlin doesn’t think the law applies to him. This becomes apparent when Jesse finds him passed out, drunk, and on the side of the road in a McLaren worth more than most people’s homes. After Devlin takes a swing at him and Jesse swiftly dumps him in the drunk tank, Jesse realizes he’s made an enemy.

Devlin makes it his life’s mission to use his money and influence to provoke Jesse. And thanks to a few big campaign donations, he’s got Jesse’s nemesis, Gary Armistead, the mayor of Paradise, on his side. Devlin’s even got Molly Crane, Jesse’s deputy chief, wanting to act on her violent urges.

Jesse has every reason to want Devlin out of his town. But when he vanishes, and bloodstains are found on the carpet of his monstrous seaside mansion, Jesse finds himself the main suspect in Devlin’s disappearance. Suspended from his position as chief, Jesse must solve the case and prove his own innocence—or he might be the one to wind up behind bars.

Release date: February 10, 2026

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons

Print pages: 320

Sample

The car parked on the side of the road was worth more than Jesse Stone had once paid for a house.

There was a lot of money in Paradise, Massachusetts, the seaside town where he'd been chief of police for years now. On a per capita basis, Paradise was probably richer than some European nations.

But for the most part, the longtime residents here still tended to shy away from big displays of wealth.

Jesse was on night traffic patrol. In an eleven-person department, everyone had to take a shift sooner or later, even the chief. Jesse actually appreciated working nights when his turn came around. Most of the time, it was quiet.

The car was a McLaren. Jesse wasn't sure of the exact model number. All he knew about them was that they were expensive and they went fast. It looked like a spaceship that had come in for a landing.

He was a little surprised to see something that expensive this late in the season. Summer was over, and the tourists and the summer people had mostly left. The air was getting cooler at night, and the big parties had all ended. It had been a peaceful few months, for a change. There were the usual drunken idiots (Jesse knew about being a drunken idiot), some bar fights, a couple overdoses, and one high-dollar burglary at a summer rental, but nothing too violent or unusual. Jesse appreciated that. He'd learned to take the quiet moments when he could.

He pulled his department-issued Explorer behind the sports car.

As he stepped out of the Explorer, he saw someone in the driver's seat, head resting against the window. He reached back into the SUV and pressed his siren to give a little whoop.

The man woke up with a start.

Jesse felt relief. He'd found too many bodies in his career. He didn't need another one.

Jesse grabbed the mike of the Explorer's PA system. "Sir, I need you to stay in your seat and put your hands on the wheel where I can see them."

Instead, the man turned around and stared into the glare of Jesse's headlights. White guy. Forties or so. His hair was mussed, and his face looked red and creased. He hadn't shaved in some time.

"Sir . . ." Jesse began again.

But the man either didn't hear or didn't care. He scrabbled at the latch for a moment and then the gull-wing door came up and he half stepped, half fell out of the McLaren.

He popped up quickly, brushing gravel from his palms, and stared back at Jesse and the Explorer.

"The hell do you want?" he said.

Once the man was standing, Jesse could see he was big, with a barrel chest and thick arms. Could probably bench-press a lot in the gym. He wore a crumpled Oxford shirt unbuttoned to his belly and shorts. No shoes. Not even sandals.

On his bare chest, just below his throat, there was a tattoo. In an Old English font, the words cui bono.

"Sir," Jesse said. "Sit back down in the car. Please."

The man spat. Then fixed his bleary gaze on Jesse.

"Look. I'm just trying to get home. Why don't you just get back in your little Tonka truck and leave me alone, okay?"

Jesse walked forward.

"Have you been drinking tonight, sir?"

Jesse stood about an arm's length away from the man. The man frowned. He took a step closer, swaying.

The man gave Jesse a big grin. "I have the right to remain silent. So listen to this."

He closed his mouth with a solid click.

"So that would be a yes on the drinking, then," Jesse said.

Even from a couple feet, Jesse could smell the alcohol on the man. It was on his breath, in his sweat, in his clothing.

Jesse knew that stink better than he'd like. He'd been a drunk for a long time. Now every day was another step away from being that guy again.

Fortunately, sometimes there were people like this man to remind him what he'd looked like.

Jesse tried for reasonable one more time. "Sir," he said. "I'm going to need you to take a Breathalyzer test, but I think we both know what it's going to show. Come with me. I'll get you a place to sleep for the night, and we can deal with the rest in the morning."

That was probably the best possible offer this man would get from any cop.

But he didn't take it that way.

"You think I'm going to jail?" he said, as if he found that hilarious. "No. Absolutely not."

"It's not really up to you at this point, sir."

The man's grin grew even wider. "Nah. See, I don't do jail. Believe me, bigger guys than you have tried."

He laughed suddenly, nearly doubling himself over with his own wit.

Jesse let him. The world was a pretty grim place. Someone might as well find it funny.

"Okay," Jesse said, after he was done. "Time to go. Turn around and put your hands behind your back."

The man spat again, then took another step closer to Jesse. "Make me."

Jesse sighed and waited.

The punch came like a fat, slow softball thrown at a church picnic. Jesse, who'd been on track for the majors until a career-ending injury, caught it easily in one hand. There was a loud thwack that echoed through the night.

The man looked stung. He probably thought he'd been pretty clever. Drunks usually thought they were pretty clever.

He tried to pull his hand away. Jesse didn't let him.

The man frowned. Then scowled. He yanked harder, pulling back with both feet.

Jesse applied a little more pressure, squeezing the bones of the man's hand together.

He yowled, his face crumpling like a toddler's after dropping a cookie. "Son of a bitch!" he screamed. "That really hurts!"

Jesse spun him around and put him against the McLaren, then got out his cuffs.

"You have the right to remain silent," Jesse said, beginning the drill.

The Miranda warning was drowned out by the man's sudden string of obscenities. "You think I'm going to jail? I am not going to any goddamn jail!"

"Well," Jesse said. "You say that . . ."

Jesse rifled through the man's pockets. No wallet. No license.

"Any chance you want to tell me your name? It generally makes things easier. You know, paperwork."

Throughout the whole confrontation, Jesse had never raised his voice once.

"Fuck off," the man snapped.

"Funny, I run into a lot of people with that same name," Jesse said.

Jesse got him into the back of the Explorer, where he thrashed around a little more but quickly gave up struggling. Breathing heavily, he settled back into the seat.

Jesse picked up the radio again. "Don't worry. I'm going to call someone to tow your car. They'll be careful."

The man sneered at Jesse in the rearview mirror. "Like I give a shit," he said. "Leave it. I'll just buy another one."

Jesse shrugged, then pulled away from the side of the road, heading toward the station.

The man spoke up again from the backseat. "You just made a huge mistake, buddy. Huge."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Jesse said.

The man glared and his voice grew low and mean.

"I promise you," he said. "You're going to regret this."

"That's exactly what the last guy named Fuckoff told me," Jesse said. "You sure you're not related?"

Two

Jesse got to the station a little after ten-thirty. One of the few perks of being chief, after being on the night shift. He got almost five whole hours of sleep that way.

Molly Crane, his deputy chief, was already at her desk. "Hey, look who brought in a celebrity last night."

Jesse went straight for the coffeemaker. "I did what now?"

"Of course you don't know. Don't you ever pay attention to the news?"

"I read the sports section."

Molly rolled her eyes at him. "The guy you brought in for drunk and disorderly. Last night."

"I do remember that much. Jesus."

"You're so grumpy before your coffee."

"I've had two cups already."

"Have another. You'll need it. The guy? The one still cooling his heels in cell three?"

Jesse drank more coffee. It did not make him more patient. "Yes. We've established that."

"You really don't know who he is?"

"Our conversation didn't get that far. He took a swing. Didn't give me his name, didn't have any ID. I printed him and put him in the cell. He was passed out when Gabe came by to relieve me at four."

"It's Ramsey Devlin."

Jesse took another sip of coffee.

Molly shook her head. "I'm going to spare you the embarrassment of admitting you have no idea who that is."

"I'm not embarrassed."

"You should be," Molly said. "The hedge fund manager? The federal fraud case? In New York?"

Now it rang a bell. Jesse remembered Molly being outraged about that. But then, Molly was outraged by a lot of things. They blended together.

"The Feds brought him up on wire fraud, right? He got off?"

"You were listening," she said. "Yes, the jury acquitted him. And the Feds let him go, and he moved out of Manhattan and came straight to-"

"Let me guess: Paradise's newest citizen."

"Correct."

Now Jesse remembered. For the last six months, the biggest point of controversy in town had been the new house built on Seaside Drive. Someone had snuck in and bought two of the old classic Cape Cods that stood on the high point above the ocean. Then the construction crews knocked them down and dug a new foundation before anyone could object.

Jesse had gotten a lot of calls, and he'd patiently explained to the older residents of Paradise that construction permits were not part of his job. As far as he knew, everything was in order.

Although he agreed the house was a massive eyesore. It rose like a concrete shoebox over the Atlantic, sitting atop a fake lawn and alongside an Olympic-size pool.

The whole thing had gone up incredibly fast. Many people said someone had greased the process along, which Jesse did not think was an outlandish theory.

In the past week or two, Jesse knew there were moving vans at the big, ugly house. It was hard to do anything without people noticing in Paradise. It was still a small town in that way.

"So that's the guy who built the house. Huh," Jesse said. "Well, it matches his car."

"Yeah, where is the car?"

"Still on the road, as far as I know."

"What?" Molly looked at the paperwork on her desk again. "Jesse, that's a McLaren 720S."

"Yup."

"And you left it there? Even in Paradise, you can't just leave a car like that out there."

Jesse shrugged. "He said he didn't want it towed."

"So you chose to listen to a drunk who told you to abandon a car worth a half-million dollars?"

"I figured he didn't want to get it scratched."

Molly gave him a look. Jesse was used to that look. It didn't scare him anymore. Much.

"Yeah, I bet that's what you figured," she said.

"It's his car," Jesse said. "He made his decision."

"Well, you can explain it to the lawyer."

"He's already got a lawyer?"

"Devlin's lawyer was here when I got in. Wanted to see you, wanted his client released immediately. They won't stand for this kind of harassment. He said some shitty things to me."

Jesse raised his eyebrows. "He did?"

"Nothing I couldn't handle. He's going to have my job for this, I'm going to rue the day, I'm just a stupid bitch who shouldn't be a cop. You know. The whole routine."

"I could sing it by heart," Jesse said. "Where is he now?"

"Bothering Ellis, I believe," Molly said, referring to Ellis Munroe, the district attorney. "I told him we don't handle bail here. I made him Ellis's problem."

"Way to delegate," Jesse said.

"It's one of my many gifts. But he'll be back soon."

"Did he really say 'rue the day'?"

"That was the nicest thing he said," Molly said. She took out her phone. "Look, I found this on YouTube about Devlin. To give you an idea of who we're dealing with here."

She pulled up the video and turned the phone toward Jesse. It was an interview on one of the financial channels. Jesse didn't really follow business news. His 401(k) went up and down, and that's as much as he knew about the market.

Devlin, looking a little more polished and smooth on-screen, sat in a chair facing a brunette anchorwoman. He didn't wear a tie with his power suit, and his blinding white shirt was open at the neck, exposing his tattoo.

"Oh, you like that," he said to the anchorwoman, opening the shirt a little more to reveal his bare chest. "That's my firm's motto. It's Latin. Cui Bono," he said, pronouncing it "qwee bo-no." "It means 'Who Benefits.' That's our mantra, our guiding philosophy at the Devlin Fund."

"And who benefits?" the anchorwoman asked.

Devlin grinned, showing sharp white teeth. "Me," he said. "I always benefit. And that's how our clients benefit, too. I always make sure I make a profit. All I do is win. They get to come along for the ride."

Molly turned off the phone. "Well," Jesse said. "He seems like a real addition to the town."

"I thought we were full up on assholes, but he decided we could use one more," Molly said.

Jesse looked at the bottom of his coffee cup and sighed. "Is there any chance he's going to just take the lesson and move on?"

Molly looked at Jesse for a moment. And then laughed out loud.

"Yeah," Jesse said. "Didn't think so."

Three

Look, Sheriff Stone, this small-town intimidation bullshit might work on the yokels, but I assure you we are not impressed."

Jesse thought, Sheriff?

And then he thought, yokels?

But Devlin's lawyer, Gordon Wilkes, a man with a Satanic goatee and dark curly hair, was only getting started.

He'd walked into the station smiling and laughing with Ellis. Jesse didn't trust anyone who warmed up to people that quickly, especially not a lawyer. But he'd hoped it meant they could process Devlin's bail quickly.

He was wrong. He'd invited both Ellis and Wilkes into his office and closed the door, and Wilkes began lecturing before Jesse could even take his seat.

"Frankly, I would expect this sort of penny-ante corruption from someone in the middle of nowhere, not a police department within minutes of Boston. Did you really think we'd just roll over and let you do this?"

Jesse sat back and put his feet up on the desk. He thought he'd get comfortable until the lawyer wound himself down.