Chief of Police Jesse Stone (Tom Selleck) and his lead officer Simpson begin to hunt down a murderer after the body of a fourteen year old is found in a river in Paradise, Massachusetts. With the finding of a high school class ring, they identify the corpse as the local slut Emily Bishop. While all this is going on the rest of his department is dealing with a husband that violently beats his wife. Stone discovers that the writer Norman Shaw (Gary Basaraba) was very close to the dead girl and planed to write a biography of a famous gangster named Leo in his next book. Using his instincts, Stone puts the pieces of the puzzle together to reveal the criminal.
