Spenser novels

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 like Vic Harroway, body builder. Mr. Muscle is Spenser's only lead and he isn't talking...except with his fists....

Private investigator Spenser leaves Boston for summertime Cape Cod where he and his friend Susan Silverman find themselves involved with fools and villains whose concerns are extortion, robbery, and murder.

When Spenser accepts a job as a "bodyguard" for a beautiful young woman, he gets in way over his head.

"Private-eye Spenser is in Hollywood to protect a beautiful reporter investigating corruption and racketeering in the movie industry, and together they search for a murderer in Tinsel Town."--from NoveList.

"When Spenser is hired to protect a senatorial candidate and his promiscuous wife, he finds himself involved in blackmail and drug dealing in Washington, D.C."--from NoveList.

Spenser loves just one woman, even though she's the one he's just lost. So when her desperate letter arrives, he doesn't think twice. He has to free his best friend from a life sentence, and get Susan out of trouble.

Spenser is called in to investigate the murder of a reporter working on a story about the cocaine trade. Threats by the local police and a Columbian produce dealer lead Spenser to dig deeper.

Spenser, the tough-guy private eye from Boston, investigates Dwayne Woodcook, an arrogant athlete who the directors of Taft U. suspect is shaving points in basketball games.

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....

"Spenser tracks a mystery woman who refuses to rest in peace in Parker's most beguiling thriller. Hired by a Boston aristocrat who believes his late wife's brutal street slaying is something other than random violence, Spenser immediately senses his client's picture-perfect version of his family's life is a world of grand illusion, peopled by cardboard cutouts and seething with scandal."--from NoveList.

When Lisa St. Claire, the beautiful young bride of a Boston police detective vanishes mysteriously, Spenser joins the search for the missing woman, following a dangerous trail that leads him to a sociopathic Latino ex-lover and into a deadly confrontation with Lisa's dark past.

In Boston, a girl student is murdered and police arrest a black man who has a history of sexual assault. The prosecution has no problem obtaining a conviction, even though the man is not guilty. PI Spenser is hired to find the man who is.

When Robinson Nevins, the son of Hawk's boyhood mentor, is denied tenure at the University, Hawk asks Spencer to investigate. It appears the denial is tied to the suicide of a young gay activist, Prentice Lamont.

Boston private investigator Spenser heads west to the rich man's haven of Potshot, Arizona, a former mining town reborn as a paradise for Los Angeles millionaires, where he has been hired to investigate a murder in which the suspects are a local gang of misfits, desert rats, drunks, and thieves led by a charismatic individual known only as The Preacher.

Boston private detective Spenser finds himself at odds with mobster Sonny Karnofsky when his investigation of the decades-old murder of Emily Gordon, gunned down during a bank heist, turns up links to the killing of Karnofsky's daughter.

"When his friend, Hawk, is brutally injured after helping protect another man, bookie Luther Gillespie, Boston private detective Spenser throws himself into Hawk's rehabilitation and investigates the Ukrainian mob he believes is responsible for the attack, a case that is complicated by local police force corruption."--from noveList.

"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."--from NoveList.

Reluctantly escorting the gold-digging and recently separated Heidi Bradshaw to her daughter's wedding, Boston private investigator Spenser hopes to reconnect with his beloved Susan at the wedding, but becomes enmeshed in a kidnapping plot involving his nemesis Rugar.

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.

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 is gruff, street-smart, and wise beyond her years, left to care for her younger siblings and an alcoholic grandmother in a dilapidated apartment in South Boston. But her need for closure and her determination to make things right hit Spenser where he lives-...

It's December in Boston, and Spenser is busy planning the menu for Christmas dinner when he's confronted in his office by a young 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...

"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, where zero tolerance for minors is a way of life. Leading the movement is tough-as-nails Judge Joe Scali, who gives speeches about getting tough...

"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 big dreams of making it 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 no leads. Leggett's...