An Apache hit man arrives in Paradise to find a missing girl and snuff out her mother. But his conscience is getting the best of him. If he doesn’t make the hit, he’ll pay for it. So might Jesse Stone, who’s been enlisted to protect them all.From Publishers WeeklyJesse Stone trades quips with his deputies, Suitcase Simpson and Molly Crane; struggles with his relationship with his ex-wife, Jenn; and grapples with a criminal's return in bestseller Parker's sizzling seventh novel to feature the Paradise, Mass., police chief (after 2007'sHigh Profile). Ex-con Wilson Crow Cromartie, who claims to be Apache and who eluded the police after a shootout 10 years earlier inTrouble in Paradise(1998), wants Stone not to interfere in his search for someone in Massachusetts. A Florida mob bigwig, Louis Francisco, has hired Crow to kill his ex-wife and kidnap his 14-year-old daughter, Amber, but Crow has a policy of not harming women. In the end, Stone does more than leave Crow alone; he decides to make sure Amber, who's involved with a Latino gang, gets a chance, however slim, to overcome the odds stacked against her. Stone and Crow make an appealing odd couple as they first warily size each other up then become grudging allies in the pursuit of justice.(Feb.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.ReviewIf Spencer is the invincible knight, the timeless hero of American detective fiction, then Jess Stone is the flawed hero of the moment, a man whose deficiencies define his humanity - New York Times Book Review. - deftly sketched characters - his use of genre material is always fresh. He demonstrates his continued ability to write well-constructed and literate works of detective fiction - Times Literary Supplement.