High Profile

Paradise, Massachusetts, is not used to attention, but it gets plenty when the body of Walton Weeks is found hanging from a tree on the edge of town. Weeks was a controversial talk-show host with a loud national following, and his death turns police chief Jesse Stone's quiet beat into a media circus. Jesse has to answer to reporters from outside and to small-minded local officials who care more about appearances than answers.

A few days later a second body turns up, that of a young woman, and the pressure on Jesse climbs again. Two killings in under a week ought to leave a trail, but every lead he follows ends in a wall. What troubles him almost as much is the silence around the dead. Weeks's ex-wives show no grief, and the girl's family seems just as indifferent. Then the medical examiner reveals a painful connection between the two victims, and the case grows stranger rather than clearer.

Neither victim offers an obvious pool of suspects, whatever Weeks's reputation or the girl's youth might suggest. The crimes are among the most brutal Jesse has seen, yet it is the cold ill will behind them that unsettles him most. His search pulls him into a tangle of volatile relationships, where deciding whom to trust may be the difference between life and death.

High Profile is a Jesse Stone novel by Robert B. Parker.