When two seemingly unconnected mysterious deaths occur on his watch, police chief Jesse Stone must pull out all the stops to unravel the truth and stop a killer from striking again. The small town of Paradise is devastated when a star high-school baseball player is found dead at the bottom of a bluff just a day after winning the team’s biggest game. For Jesse, the loss is doubly difficult—the teen was the nephew of his colleague, Suitcase Simpson, and Jesse had been coaching the young shortstop. As he searches for answers about how the boy died and why, he is stonewalled at every turn, and it seems that someone is determined to keep him from digging further. Jesse suddenly must divide his attention between two cases after the shocking murder of former Paradise police chief, Charlie Farrell. Before his death, Farrell had been looking into a series of scam calls that preyed upon the elderly. But how do these “ghost calls” connect to his murder? When threats—and gunshots—appear on Jesse’s own doorstep, the race to find answers is on. Both old and new enemies come into play, and in the end, Jesse and his team must discover the common factor between the two deaths in order to prevent a third. “Fallout combines murder, mystery, mobsters, crypto scams, and the snappy dialogue so characteristic of the Parker novels that came before.”-- New York Journal of Books "An effective series of small-town jolts."-- Kirkus Reviews Robert B. Parker was the author of seventy books, including the legendary Spenser detective series, the novels featuring Chief Jesse Stone, and the acclaimed Virgil Cole/Everett Hitch westerns, as well as the Sunny Randall novels. Winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award and long considered the undisputed dean of American crime fiction, he died in January 2010. Mike Lupica is a prominent sports journalist and the New York Times bestselling author of more than forty works of fiction and nonfiction, including cowritten novels with James Patterson. A longtime friend to Robert B. Parker, he was selected by the Parker estate to continue the Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone series. One Jesse Stone looked out at the baseball game being played at O'Hara Field, a ballgame on an afternoon like this always a beautiful thing, at least to him, his eyes fixed at the moment on the kid playing shortstop. Jesse felt as if he were looking at himself, back when he was a high school senior, back when he could see a whole lifetime of baseball days like this stretching out in front of him. This kid was a little taller. Had a little more range. But not more arm. Definitely not more arm. Nobody ever had more arm than I did. Jesse felt himself smiling. Because even knowing what he knew about what had happened once he made it as far as Triple-A, the big leagues close enough to touch, knowing how baseball would break his goddamn heart later, he wanted to climb down out of the bleachers and be this kid's age and change places with him in a heartbeat. Just for one more afternoon. Have one more game like this. "What did you think about when it was late in a game like this?" Suitcase Simpson asked. Suit was on one side of Jesse. Molly Crane was on the other. The kid at short, Jack Carlisle, was Suit's nephew, his sister Laura's boy. About to accept a scholarship to go play college ball at Vanderbilt, unless he changed his mind at the last second. Jesse didn't follow college ball the way he did the majors. But he knew enough to know that Vanderbilt had a big-ass program, and had sent a lot of kids to the big leagues over the years. "I wanted the ball hit to me," Jesse said. He heard a snort from Molly. "So you could be in control. I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell ya." Without turning, Jesse put a finger to his lips. "Don't you shush me, Jesse Stone," she said. "You act like we're in church." "Baseball is better than church," Jesse said. Molly, the good Catholic girl, stared up at the sky. "Forgive him, Father." She smiled. "And not just for that." Jesse turned to Suit. "I feel as if I've been sitting next to fans like her at ballgames my whole life." "You wish," Molly said. Suit shook his head. "I feel like I've got a bad middle seat on a long plane ride." The Paradise Pirates were ahead of Marshport, 21. League championship game. Bottom of the ninth. Jesse always wanted to laugh when he heard people calling teams "bitter" rivals in sports. Only people on the outside. They had no idea. All they had to do was watch a game like this. Every single one of these kids on this field, both teams, waiting for the ball to be put in play and so much to start happening at once, was exactly where he wanted to be. Where I always wanted to be. Wanting the ball to be hit to me. He had been working with Jack Carlisle a little bit this spring, at Suit's request. Trying to teach the kid some of the things that Jesse had learned on his own. Not teach him everything he knew. Just some of it. Some of