Spenser novels
Author:
Showing
1 - 51
of 51
Author:
Series Volume:
1.
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
Summary: In his first appearance, Spenser is hired to find a 14th century manuscript stolen from a university. The university is convinced that a radical group of anti-capitalism students, led by the striking Terry Orchard and her belligerent boyfriend Dennis Powell, are behind the theft and ransom demand.
Author:
Series Volume:
2.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
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...
Author:
Series Volume:
5.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
Spenser has gone to London — and not to see the Queen. He's gone to track down a bunch of bombers who've blown away his client's wife and kids. His job is to catch them. Or kill them. His client isn't choosy. 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...
Author:
Series Volume:
6.
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
When Spenser accepts a job as a "bodyguard" for a beautiful young woman, he gets in way over his head. "(Spenser) gives the connoisseur of that rare combination of good detective fiction and good literature a chance to indulge himself".--The Boston Globe.
7. Early autumn
Author:
Series Volume:
7.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
“[Robert B.] Parker's brilliance is in his simple dialogue, and in Spenser.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer
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...
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...
Author:
Series Volume:
9.
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
Pretty teenager April Kyle is in grown-up-trouble, involved with people who would beat her up for a dollar and kill her for five. Now she's disappeared, last seen in the Combat Zone, that side of Boston where nothing's proper, especially the sex for sale. With Hawk, his sidekick, Spenser takes on the whole X-rated industry. From a specialty whorehouse in Providence to stylish Back Bay bordellos, he pits muscle and wit against bullets and brawn until...
Author:
Series Volume:
10.
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
The adoring wife of a senatorial candidate has a smile as sweet as candy and dots her "i's" with little hearts. A blond beauty, she is the perfect mate for an ambitious politician, but she has a little problem with sex and drugs -- a problem someone has managed to put on videotape. The big boys figure a little blackmail will put her husband out of the race. Until Spenser hops on the candidate's bandwagon.
Author:
Series Volume:
12.
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
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...
Praise for A Catskill Eagle
“Entertaining.”—The...
15. Crimson joy
Author:
Series Volume:
15.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
A serial killer leaves one red rose on the body of each woman he kills. When private eye Spenser joins the effort to stop him, the "Red Rose Killer" targets Spenser's long-time girlfriend, Susan Silverman. Can Spenser stop him before it's too late?
16. Playmates
Author:
Series Volume:
16.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Formats:
Description:
Spenser goes back to school-to investigate corruption in college town. Taft University's hottest basketball star is shaving points for quick cash. And if Spenser doesn't watch his own footwork, the guilty parties will shave a few years off his life ...
17. Stardust
Author:
Series Volume:
17.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
Summary: Hired to protect Jill Joyce, the beautiful star of a prime-time television hit, Spenser must keep himself from falling for the young woman while he keeps her dangerous stalker at bay.
18. Pastime
Author:
Series Volume:
18.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Formats:
Description:
Paul Giacomin enlists Spenser's help in localing his mother who has vanished. As they follow her trail, they are faced with a confrontation that may threaten their lives.
19. Double deuce
Author:
Series Volume:
19.
Formats:
Description:
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 know as "Double Deuce," he enlists his friend's aid. A teenage girl and her infant daughter have been gunned down. Though the act at first appears to be an accidental drive-by shooting, it soon becomes clear that it was premeditated murder....
20. Paper doll
Author:
Series Volume:
20.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"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 ..."--(from cover, p. [4]).
21. Walking shadow
Author:
Series Volume:
21.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Formats:
Description:
A murder draws Boston PI Spenser into the dramatic world of theater in this New York Times bestseller in Robert B. Parker’s long-running series. In a shabby waterfront town, an actor is shot dead onstage. Granted, the script left much to be desired. But there's more behind the scenes than an overzealous critic—and Spenser and Hawk are combing Port City’s underworld to find it... “Great fun...[Spenser] is still the cockiest...
22. Thin air
Author:
Series Volume:
22.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
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.
23. Chance
Author:
Series Volume:
23.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
PI Spenser is hired to find the missing husband of a Boston gangster's daughter. The assignment leads him to the underworld in Las Vegas where he realizes the case is not one of young love, but control of the gangland in Boston.
24. Small vices
Author:
Series Volume:
24.
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
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...
25. Sudden mischief
Author:
Series Volume:
25.
Average Rating:
3 stars
Formats:
Description:
Susan Silverman's ex doesn't call himself "Silverman" anymore—he's changed his name to "Sterling." And that's not the only thing that's phony about him. A do-gooding charity fundraiser, he's been accused of sexual harassment by no less than four different women. And not long after Spenser starts investigating, Sterling is wanted for a bigger charge: murder...
26. Hush money
Author:
Series Volume:
26.
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
PI Spenser investigates charges of discrimination made by a black professor who was denied tenure at a New England university. The professor claims there was a conspiracy to brand him as a homosexual. By the author The Godwulf Manuscript.
27. Hugger mugger
Author:
Series Volume:
27.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
Spenser is back and embroiled in a dangerous and multi-layered case. Someone has been killing racehorses at stables across the south, and Walter Clive, president of Three Fillies Stables, hires him to find out who. Spenser goes to Georgia to protect Hugger Mugger, a two-year-old destined to become the next Secretariat. Disregarding the resentment of the local Georgia law enforcement, he takes the case. Despite the veneer of civility, Spenser encounters...
28. Potshot
Author:
Series Volume:
28.
Average Rating:
3 stars
Formats:
Description:
Boston P.I. Spenser returns—heading west to the rich man’s haven of Potshot, Arizona, a former mining town reborn as a paradise for Los Angeles millionaires looking for a place to escape the pressures of their high-flying lifestyles. Potshot overcame its rough reputation as a rendezvous for old-time mountain men who lived off the land, thanks to a healthy infusion of new blood and even newer money. But when this western idyll is threatened...
29. Widow's walk
Author:
Series Volume:
29.
Average Rating:
4.7 stars
Description:
When Nathan Smith, a prominent local banker and millionaire, is murdered, Spenser is called in to investigate Nathan's young wife, Mary, and as the evidence stacks up against her, Spenser discovers that Mary's mysterious past has put his own life in danger.
30. Back story
Author:
Series Volume:
30.
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
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.
31. Bad business
Author:
Series Volume:
31.
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
When Marlene Rowley hires Spenser to follow her cheating husband, Spenser finds not only a two-timing spouse, but another detective hired to shadow the wayward Marlene. Not the most trusting couple in town--but, as in Spenser's about to learn, certainly one of the most dangerous.
32. Cold service
Author:
Series Volume:
32.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"When his closest ally, Hawk, is brutally injured and left for dead while protecting bookie Luther Gillespie, Spenser embarks on an epic journey to rehabilitate his friend in body and soul"--Page 4 of cover
33. School days
Author:
Series Volume:
33.
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
Lily Ellsworth the grand dame of Dowling, Massachusetts hires Spenser to investigate her grandson Jared Clark's alleged involvement in a school shooting. Though seven people were killed in cold blood, and despite Jared's being named as a co-conspirator by the other shooter, Mrs. Ellsworth is convinced of her grandson's innocence.
Author:
Series Volume:
34.
Average Rating:
4.7 stars
Description:
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.
35. Now and then
Author:
Series Volume:
35.
Average Rating:
4.7 stars
Description:
Investigating a new client's unfaithful wife, Boston private eye Spenser finds himself in trouble when the case goes terribly wrong and three people wind up dead, a situation that reveals the wife's lover's ties to a terrorist organization.
36. Rough weather
Author:
Series Volume:
36.
Average Rating:
4 stars
Formats:
Description:
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.
37. The professional
Author:
Series Volume:
37.
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
Elizabeth Shaw specializes in wills and trusts at the Boston law firm of Shaw & Cartwright, and over the years she's developed a friendship with wives of very wealthy men. However, these rich wives have a mutual secret: they've all had an affair with a man named Gary Eisenhower--and now he's blackmailing them for money. Shaw hires Spenser to make Eisenhower "cease and desist," so to speak, but when women start turning up dead, Spenser's assignment...
38. Painted ladies
Author:
Series Volume:
38.
Average Rating:
4.6 stars
Description:
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.
39. Sixkill
Author:
Series Volume:
39.
Average Rating:
3.2 stars
Description:
When infamous actor Jumbo Nelson is accused of rape and murder, the Boston PD calls on Spenser to make heads or tails of the case. Although the evidence is mounting against Jumbo, Spenser makes a break when he teams up with Jumbo's bodyguard, Zebulon Sixkill, and uncovers some secrets involving the murder victim.
Author:
Series Volume:
40.
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Formats:
Description:
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...
41. Wonderland
Author:
Series Volume:
41.
Formats:
Description:
Henry Cimoli and Spenser have been friends for years, yet the old boxing trainer has never asked the private eye for a favor. Until now. A heavy-handed developer is trying to buy up Henry's condo on Revere Beach and sends thugs to move the process along. Soon Spenser and his apprentice, Zebulon Sixkill, find a trail leading to a mysterious and beautiful woman, a megalomaniacal Las Vegas kingpin, and plans to turn to a chunk of land north of Boston...
Author:
Series Volume:
42.
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"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...
Author:
Series Volume:
43.
Average Rating:
4.8 stars
Formats:
Description:
"The iconic, tough-but-tender Boston PI Spenser returns in an outstanding new addition to the New York Times-bestselling series from author Ace Atkins. Kinjo Heywood is one of the New England Patriots' marquee players-a hard-nosed linebacker who's earned his reputation as one of the toughest guys in the league. When off-field violence repeatedly lands Heywood in the news, his slick agent hires Spenser to find the men who he says have been harassing...
Author:
Series Volume:
44.
Average Rating:
4 stars
Formats:
Description:
"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...
Author:
Series Volume:
45.
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Formats:
Description:
"Boston PI Spenser faces a hot case and a personal crisis in the latest adventure in the iconic New York Times-bestselling series from author Ace Atkins. The fire at a boarded-up Catholic church raged hot and fast, lighting up Boston's South End and killing three firefighters who were trapped in the inferno. A year later, as the city prepares to honor their sacrifice, there are still no answers about how the deadly fire started. Most at the department...
Author:
Series Volume:
46.
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
"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....
Author:
Series Volume:
47.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Formats:
Description:
"Iconic, tough-but-tender Boston PI Spenser delves into the black market art scene to investigate a decades-long unsolved crime of dangerous proportions. The heist was legendary, still talked about twenty years after the priceless paintings disappeared from one of Boston's premier art museums. Most thought the art was lost forever, buried deep, sold off overseas, or, worse, destroyed as incriminating evidence. But when paint chips from the most valuable...
48. Robert B. Parker's angel eyes
Author:
Series Volume:
49.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Formats:
Description:
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 is a college student with a side job working for the iconic private eye, and she dreams of being an investigator herself. When Mattie's childhood friend from the South Boston housing projects, Chloe Turner, is found dead, she decides to take on the case. Soon Spenser and Mattie find ties between Turner...
50. Bye bye baby
Author:
Series Volume:
50.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Formats:
Description:
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...
51. Broken trust
Author:
Series Volume:
51.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
Spenser investigates the past secrets of an elusive tech billionaire in this latest installment of Robert B. Parker's beloved series, and the first written by celebrated writer Mike Lupica. Andrew Crain has it all: a brilliant scientist and astute businessman, his groundbreaking work with lithium has made him one of the world's richest men. He is universally adored and admired; that is, until Crain's beautiful wife, Laura, comes to Spenser hoping...