Spenser novels

New York Times bestselling author of the Spenser series of crime thrillers - Book 2 in the series -
Appie Knoll is the kind of suburb where kids grow up right. But something is wrong. Fourteen-year-old Kevin Bartlett disappears. Everyone thinks he's run away — until the comic strip ransom note arrives.  It doesn't take Spenser long to get the picture — an affluent family seething with rage, a desperate boy making strange friends...friends...

The Boston PI gets tangled in Cape Cod’s criminal underworld in this Edgar Award–winning mystery from the New York Times–bestselling author.
 
Cape Cod businessman Harvey Shepard is in over his head. He lost a quarter million on a shady real estate deal, the loan shark is circling, and now he needs a private investigator to find out where his wife, Pam, disappeared to. Spencer takes the case, but finding...

“Crackling dialogue, plenty of action, and expert writing.”—The New York Times
Rachel Wallace is a tough young woman with a lot of enemies. 
Spenser is a tough guy with a macho code of honor, hired to protect a woman who thinks that kind of code is obsolete. Privately, they will never see eye to eye.
But when Rachel vanishes. Spenser is ready to lay his life on the line—to find Rachel Wallace.
“A...

TV reporter Candy Sloan has eyes the color of cornflowers and legs that stretch all the way to heaven. She also has somebody threatening to rearrange her lovely face if she keeps on snooping into charges of Hollywood racketeering.
Spenser's job is to keep Candy healthy until she breaks the biggest story of her career. But her star witness has just bowed out with three bullets in his chest, two tough guys have doubled up to test Spenser's skill...

The sweet, adoring wife of senate candidate Meade Alexander had a little problem with sex and drugs--a problem someone managed to put on videotape. A blackmail attempt gets Spenser involved. And for the detective, getting back the tape of a lady's X-rated indiscretion promises to bring him nothing but trouble--trouble that is deep, wide, and deadly.

Susan's letter came from California: Hand was in jail, and she was on the run. Twenty-four hours later, Hawk is free, because Spenser has sprung him loose—for a brutal cross-country journey back to the East Coast. Now the two men are on a violent ride to find the woman Spenser loves, the man who took her, and the shocking reason so many people had to die. . . . 
Praise for A Catskill Eagle
“Entertaining.”—The...

Ten years ago, Paul Giacomin's corrupt father and loose mother used the boys as a pawn in their violent race: only Spenser could call them off and straighten out the misled teen-almost getting killed in the process. Paul is now twenty-four and reconciled to his mother's wanton ways. But when Patty Giacomin vanishes, Paul begs Spenser to help him rescue her from the clutches of her boyfriend, a shady character he's sure coerced his mother into running.

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Boston PI Spenser investigates the perfect murder in this New York Times bestselling mystery in Robert B. Parker’s acclaimed series.
She was a model wife and mother, bludgeoned with a hammer on the streets of Beacon Hill. Spenser's searching for a motive and a murderer—and finding more secrets than meet the eye...
“Among the best Spensers...Parker's at the top of his game!”—Boston Globe...

When the bride of a Boston police detective vanishes, he hires Spenser to find her. His path leads from a New England college campus to glamorous L.A. Sports clubs. When the trail turns to a world of prostitution, drug abuse, and self-destruction, Spenser must enter ghetto tenements to continue his search. Ultimately, Spenser must hire a Chicago hitman to help him free the girl from a sociopathic ex lover. Working through gang leaders and corrupt

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Ellis Alves is no angel. But his lawyer says he was framed for the murder of college student Melissa Henderson...and asks Spenser for help.
From Boston's back streets to Manhattan's elite, Spenser and Hawk search for suspects, including Melissa's rich-kid, tennis-star boyfriend. But when a man with a .22 puts Spenser in a coma, the hope for justice may die with him...

When Robin Nevins, the son of Hawk's boyhood mentor, is denied at the University, Hawk asks Spenser to investigate. It appears the denial is tied to the suicide of a young gay activist, and as Spenser digs deeper he is nearly drowned in a multicultural swamp of politics: black, gay, academic, and feminist. At the same time, Spenser's inamorata, Susan, asks him to come to the aid of an old college friend, K.C. Roth, the victim of a stalker. Spenser

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Potshot, AZ is a haven for wealthy Los Angelenos looking for a place to escape the pressures of their high-flying lifestyles. It used to be a rough mining town. It's more genteel now, but there is still a criminal element -- a motley band of thieves led by a charismatic person known only as the Preacher. They selectively exploit the town, nurturing it as a source of wealth, while systematically robbing the residents blind. Enter Spenser, hired...

"Thirty years after an unsolved bank robbery leaves a woman dead, Paul Giacomin, whom Spenser regards like a son, and Daryl Gordon, the son of the robbery victim, turn to Spenser to seek out clues about the crime from a host of suspicious characters."--Amazon.com.

When his closest ally, Hawk, is beaten and left for dead while protecting a bookie, Spenser embarks on an epic journey to rehabilitate his best pal, body and soul. But that means infiltrating a ruthless mob?and redefining his friendship with Hawk in the name of vengeance.

Spenser, a Boston PI, is once again hired by April Kyle who was a teenage runaway that turned to prostitution. Now she is a madam of an up-scale, all-female operation that some men are trying to take away from her. April claims she doesn't know who is after her business, but Spenser finds ties to organized crime. Spenser without much surprise also finds that April, the thugs and everyone else involved is lying to him.

Parker once again proves he is a force of nature in this mystery where a hurricane hinders a kidnapping and Spenser goes on a search for the man responsible--the infamous Gray Man, who has both helped and hunted Spenser in the past.

Called upon by the Hammond Museum and renowned art scholar Dr. Ashton Prince, Boston PI Spenser accepts his latest case: to provide protection during a ransom exchange--money for a stolen painting. The case becomes personal when Spenser fails to protect his client and the valuable painting remains stolen.

Spenser takes up a seemingly open and closed cold case at the behest of a street-wise teen-age girl, who believes her mother's murderers went free. As Spenser digs deeper into the mystery, he finds a much more dangerous and complex mystery than he bargained for. When fourteen-year-old Mattie Sullivan asks Spenser to look into her mother's murder, he's not completely convinced by her claim that the police investigation four years ago was botched. Mattie...

It's December in Boston, and Spenser is busy planning the menu for Christmas dinner when he's confronted in his office by a boy named Slide. Homeless and alone, Slide has found refuge with an organization named Street Business, which gives shelter and seeks job opportunities for the homeless and lost. Slide's mentor, Jackie Alvarez, is being threatened, and Street Business is in danger of losing its tenuous foothold in the community, turning Slide...

"P.I. Spenser, knight-errant of the Back Bay, returns in this stellar addition to the iconic New York Times-bestselling series from author Ace Atkins. What started out as a joke landed seventeen-year-old Dillon Yates in a lockdown juvenile facility in Boston Harbor. When he set up a prank Twitter account for his vice principal, he never dreamed he could be brought up on criminal charges, but that's exactly what happened. This is Blackburn, Massachusetts,...

Boston PI Spenser and right hand Hawk follow a con man's trail of smoke and mirrors in the latest entry of the iconic crime series. After conning everyone from the cable news shows to the local cops, it looks like the grifter's latest double cross may be his last. Connie Kelly thought she'd found her perfect man on an online dating site. He was silver-haired and handsome, with a mysterious background working for the C.I.A. She fell so hard for M....

In the latest thriller featuring the legendary Boston PI, Spenser heads to the City of Angels to meet old friends and new enemies in a baffling missing person case that might shake Tinseltown to its core.
Gabby Leggett left her Boston family with dreams of making it big as a model/actress in Hollywood. Two years later, she disappears from her apartment. Her family, former boyfriend, friends—and the police—have no idea where she is and...

Carolina Garcia-Ramirez is a rising star in national politics, taking on the establishment with her progressive agenda. Tough, outspoken, and driven, the young congresswoman has ignited a new conversation in Boston about race, poverty, health care, and the environment. Now facing her second campaign, she finds herself not only fighting a tight primary with an old guard challenger but also contending with numerous death threats coming from hundreds...