Night Passage

By: Robert B. Parker

Narrated by: Richard Masur

Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

After a busted marriage kicks his drinking problem into overdrive and the LAPD unceremoniously dumps him, 35-year-old Jesse Stone's future looks bleak. So he's shocked when a small Massachusetts town called Paradise recruits him as police chief. He can't help wondering if this job is a genuine chance to start over, the kind of offer he can't refuse.

Once on board, Jesse doesn't have to look for trouble in Paradise: It comes to him. For what is on the surface a quiet New England community quickly proves to be a crucible of political and moral corruption - replete with triple homicide, tight Boston mob ties, flamboyantly errant spouses, maddened militiamen, and a psychopath-about-town who has fixed his violent sights on the new lawman. Against all this, Jesse stands utterly alone, with no one to trust; even he and the woman he's seeing are like ships that pass in the night. He finds he must test his mettle and powers of command to emerge a local hero - or the deadest of dupes.

©1998 Robert B. Parker (P)1998 Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

Bad audio quality

I imagine this was recorded a long time ago. The audio wasn't good. I ended up buying the actual book. Series is good and worth it.

Good story, poor audio

After reading other reviews I wasn’t expecting this book to be very good. However, I was pleasantly surprised. I agree that the audio is very poor, but the narrator was not as bad as I had been led to believe. He did a very decent job, but the poor audio didn’t do him any favors. Overall, I enjoyed the book and will continue the series.

Jesse in Paradise

Great easy readl listening the attention to detail is great I like Jesse and Parker

Enjoyed the story

I love the Jesse Stone series. The sound quality of the narrator's voice was "muffled ". Reminded me of old time radio shows.

Finally...the 1st in the series.

I almost didn't download this as results of the complaints regarding the Reader & the sound quality. I would not pay full price but it worked for me. It explains the story. Good work!

Night passage

Something must be wrong here. The audio version I got was only one chapter long. Surely the book wasn't that short.

TV movie was ten times better.

Horrible performance.
Holes in the plot that no suspension of disbelief could fill.
Tom Selleck's version of the Jesse Stone story line is preferable to this drivel. I bought this book after having watched all the movies.

Worth a listen if you like Spenser

The audio on this one was bad. Like it was recorded by some kids fooling around with an old Walkman that they found in a box of junk from the 1990s.
But, I like the narrator anyway and Jesse Stone offers some potential now that Parker is gone and no longer writing about Spenser.

Good book, bad narration

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Richard Masur?

Richard Masur isn't a bad narrator, but the book sounds like a low-quality mp3 made from a third-generation audiotape duplicate recorded from a shortwave broadcast. Audible should ditch this recording and get something better. And unabridged.

Food story but the sound is compressed and noisy

This will be a great book to listen to it they would fix the sound. It sounds like the narrator recorded it and then confessed it to send it in to the editor or something a lot of noise very bad sound quality.