The adventures of twelve-year-old Hannah Rayburn, a young middle-class Jewish girl living in 1965 North Carolina, and her upper-class Catholic best friend Grace McKee.

Police Chief Jesse Stone, who was suspended by the Paradise, Mass. Town Council, begins moonlighting for his friend, State Homicide Commander Healy, by investigating a series of murders in Boston, leaving Rose and Suitcase to handle a crime spree in Paradise on their own. Jesse pours his energy into his work in an effort to push away his twin demons: booze and women. When his investigation leads to notorious mob boss Gino Fish, Jesse's pursuit becomes hazardous.

When Jesse Stone looks into the murder of a teen-age girl whose body is found floating in a local lake, it brings him up against the Boston mob and into the affluent world of a bestselling writer who exploits troubled teens.

Melanie Parker, an architect and mother of Sammy, and Jack Taylor, a newspaper columnist and father of Maggie, are both divorced. They meet one morning when overwhelmed Jack is left unexpectedly with Maggie and forgets that Melanie was to take her to school. As a result, both children miss their school field trip and are stuck with the parents. The two adults project their negative stereotypes of ex-spouses on each other, but end up needing to rely on each other to watch the children as each must save his job. Humor is added by Sammy's propensity for lodging objects in his nose and Maggie's tendency to wander.