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.

Hired by a museum to provide protection during a ransom exchange for a stolen painting, Spenser is personally outraged when the ransom fails and the painting is not recovered, a case that makes him suspect the innocence of the art scholar who retained him.

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 student with four bullets in his chest.
The cops are ready to throw the book at the pretty blond coed whose prints are all over the murder weapon but Spenser knows there are no easy answers. He tackles some very heavy homework and knows that if he doesn't...

Spenser investigates when the wife of the Boston Red Sox star pitcher is being blackmailed.

While probing the murder of coed Melissa Henderson, a crime in which Ellis Alves is the prime suspect, Spenser finds himself the target of an assassin and must play dead to find out who wants him off the case.

What initially appears to be a low-level mob hit takes on new meaning when a high-ranking crime figure is found dead on Paradise Beach. Jesse Stone and private investigator Sunny Randall team up to solve two cases involving the gunshot murder of Petrov Ognowski and a religious cult holding an 18-year-old girl against her will.

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.

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

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Investigating allegations of lewd conduct on the part of the local junior high principal, police chief Jesse Stone finds efforts to bring the woman to justice thwarted by a high-powered attorney.

Boston private detective Sunny Randall agrees to protect a touring writer from her abusive ex-husband, but she quickly learns that the stalker in question is much more sophisticated, intelligent, and potentially deadly than most.