A prequel to "Stone Cold", the story picks up after Jesse Stone is fired from the Los Angeles Police Department. He becomes an unlikely candidate recruited by a town council to become police chief of Paradise, MA, a small fishing town on Boston's North Shore. The board hopes his failed experience will keep him from digging too deep into the town's secrets. His first assignment is to investigate the murder of his predecessor whose death may be tied to a local domestic disturbance case, with connections to money laundering and murder involving some of the town's most affluent names as possible suspects.

The residents of a small town find themselves battling a swarm of hornets which has been sprayed by a super pesticide.