Emmy Award winning actor Tom Selleck is back in Nova Scotia to shoot the latest movie in the "Jesse Stone" series.

"Benefit of the Doubt," the eighth film in the CBS series, started production in Halifax on May 20.

Selleck, who plays the lead character, is also a writer and producer of the films.

The series has been filming in the province since 2004 and will once again use Blue Rocks and some venues in Halifax to substitute for the fictional town of Paradise, Massachusetts, where the series is set.

The films, adapted from novels written by the late Robert B. Parker, follow the life of Stone, an alcoholic Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective-turned-Massachusetts police chief as he deals with the divorce of his wife while managing a town filled with big league crimes.

The U.S. production will shoot over 20 days.

"We are happy to welcome the "Jesse Stone" production back to Nova Scotia," said Economic and Rural Development and Tourism Minister Percy Paris in a statement released Monday. "Attracting these kinds of investments creates good jobs for our talented workforce and helps to grow our economy."

The series has spent $17 million of its $52 million budget in Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia has contributed $3.9 million in tax credits to the series.

"This will be our eighth visit to Nova Scotia to film the "Jesse Stone" series and we always enjoy our time here," said Jake Rose, head of Sony Pictures Television Movies and Mini-Series Production. "From great cast and crew to strong financial incentives, Nova Scotia always proves to be one of the optimal filming locations for our productions."

"Innocents Lost," the seventh in the film series, aired Sunday, May 22. It was filmed in Nova Scotia during the fall of 2009.

While the production team has visited the province eight times, this is Selleck's ninth visit. He filmed "Reversible Errors," a mini-series featuring William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman, in the province in 2004. It spent $6 million during its 42-day visit to the province.

When talks about a film location for the Stone series started, Selleck thought of Halifax.

"I thought ‘this is the perfect place,'" says Selleck in a video message he posted on YouTube. "I had a very good experience with the local crews on that movie.

"We have a family of crew members," he says in the video message. "We have found a high degree of professionalism, we've found a willingness to work, because these movies are very hard work."

"We're doing movies made for television and we want them to look like feature films."

The films are also available on DVD.

"Those DVDs are selling very well because they look like theatrical movies, and it is in no small degree due to the Halifax crews and the people we have," says Selleck.

He also congratulates Film Nova Scotia, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary.