Spenser novels
“The toughest, funniest, wisest, private eye in the field these days.”—Houston Chronicle
Spenser earned his degree in the school of hard knocks, so he is ready when a Boston university hires him to recover a rare, stolen manuscript. He is hardly surpised that his only clue is a radical...
It doesn't take Spenser long to get the picture — an affluent family seething with rage, a desperate boy making strange friends...friends like Vic Harroway, body builder. Mr. Muscle is Spenser's only lead and he isn't talking...except with...
Is Marty throwing fast balls or throwing games? It doesn't take long for Spenser to link Marty's performance with Linda's past...or to find himself trapped between a crazed racketeer and an enforcer toting an M-16.
America's favorite pastime has suddenly become...
But there are nine killers to one Spenser — long odds. Hawk helps balance the equation. The rest depends on a wild plan. Spenser will get one of the terrorists to play Judas Goat — to lead him to others. Trouble is, he hasn't counted...
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Spenser is a tough guy with a macho code of honor, hired to protect a woman who thinks that kind of code is obsolete.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...
7) Early Autumn
A bitter divorce is only the beginning. First the father hires thugs to kidnap his son. Then the mother hires Spenser to get the boy back. But as soon as Spenser senses the lay of the land, he decides to do some kidnapping of his own.
With a contract out on his life, he heads for the Maine woods, determined...
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...
9) Ceremony
Praise for Ceremony
“Sizzling.”—The...
The big boys figure a little blackmail will put her husband out of the race. Until Spenser hops on the candidate's bandwagon.
But getting back the tape of...
11) Valediction
So when a religious sect kidnaps a pretty young dancer, no death threat can make Spenser cut and run. Now a hit man's bullet is wearing Spenser's name. But Boston's big boys don't know Spenser's ready and willing to meet death more than halfway.
12) A Catskill Eagle
Praise for A Catskill Eagle
“Entertaining.”—The...
Praise for Taming a Seahorse
“Irresistible!”—The Bergen Record
“A...
A hotshot reporter is dead. He'd gone to take a look-see at “Miami North”—little Wheaton, Massachusetts—the biggest cocaine distribution center above the Mason-Dixon line.
Did the kid die for getting too close to the truth . . . or to a sweet lady with a jealous husband?
Spenser will stop at nothing to find out.
Praise for Robert B. Parker's...
15) Crimson joy
Spenser plays against time while he tracks the Red Rose killer from Boston's Combat Zone to the suburbs. His trap is both daring and brave, and gives the story a satisfying climax.
16) Playmates
Spenser’s search takes him from lecture halls to blue collar bars and finally into a bloody confrontation with almost certain death. But Spenser must save an arrogant young athlete—even...
17) Stardust
First, there’s Jill herself. She’s spoiled, arrogant, drugged out—and made worse by fear. Someone is out to get her. Does she imagine it or is it real?
Spenser monitors her neurosis, but finds evidence of harassment. It escalates...
18) Pastime
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.
...19) Double deuce
Spenser is forced by loyalty into an alien world where violence is a way of life and outsiders enter at a lethal risk. When Spenser's cohort Hawk is hired by the tenants of a gang-plagued Boston housing project known as "Double Duce," he enlists his friend's aid. A Teenage girl and her infant daughtre have been gunned down. Though the act at first appears to be an accidental drive-by shooting, it soon becomes clear that it was premediatated murder.
...20) Paper Doll
Hired by Loudon Tripp, an aggrieved Boston aristocrat who believes his late wife Olivia's brutal street slaying to be something other than random violence, Spencer immediately senses that his client's picture-perfect portrayal of his family life is false. For starters, the victim's reputation is too saintly, her house is as lived-in as a stage set, and her troubled children don't appear to be the product of a happy home. Spencer plunges into a
...21) Walking shadow
22) Thin Air
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
...24) Small vices
The bad kid from the 'hood has a long, long record, but did he really murder the white coed from ritzy Pemberton College? His former lawyers believe that he was framed, and they hire Spenser and Hawk to uncover the truth. Plumbing the depths of the seamy side of life, they encounter a no man's land of twisted cops and spoiled rich kids with peculiar private proclivities. When a master assassin's bullet takes Spenser down, he survives the attack
...25) Sudden Mischief
Brad Sterling - former Harvard football player, ne'er-do-well, and Susan Silverman's long out-of touch ex-husband - is by all appearances a successful businessman. But when, in the course of running a vast fundraiser called Galapalooza, he is charged with sexual harassment, he turns to Susan for help. Though Brad denies the charge, he's desperate, behind in alimony and child support payments to other exes, and in the verge of insolvency. When Spencer,
...26) Hush money
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
...27) Hugger Mugger
28) Potshot
29) Widow's walk
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Boston's premier P.I investigates the murder of a prominent local banker, with family ties to the Mayflower - and perhaps the mob.
When fifty-one year old Nathan Smith, a confirmed bachelor, is found dead in his bed with a hole in his head made by a .38 caliber slug, it's hard not to imagine Nathan's young bride as the one with her finger on the trigger. Even her lawyer thinks she's guilty. But given...
30) Back story
31) Bad business
32) Cold Service
Spenser quickly learns...
33) School Days
When a mature, beautiful, and composed woman strides into Spenser’s office, the Boston PI barely hesitates before recognizing his once and future client. Now a well-established...
36) Rough weather
Hired as a bodyguard at an exclusive wedding, Spenser witnesses an unexpected crime: the kidnapping of the young bride, which opens the door for murder, family secrets, and the reappearance of an old nemesis.
37) The professional
38) Painted ladies
39) Sixkill
Connie Kelly thought she’d found her perfect man on an online dating site. She fell so hard for handsome, mysterious M. Brooks Welles that she wrote him a check for almost three hundred thousand dollars, hoping for a big return on her investment. But within weeks,...
48) Angel Eyes
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...
Ten years ago, Spenser helped a teenage girl named Mattie Sullivan find her mother's killer and take down an infamous Southie crime boss. Now Mattie—a college student with a side job working for the tough but tender...