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.

On a weekend trip to Hawaii, a plastic surgeon convinces his loyal assistant to pose as his soon-to-be-divorced wife in order to cover up a careless lie he told to his much-younger girlfriend.

Billy, Paddy, Archie and Sam have been best friends since childhood. When Billy proposes to his much-younger girlfriend, they go to Vegas to relive their glory days. However, the decades have changed Sin City and tested their friendship.