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.

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.

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.

“[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...

"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...

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.
But getting back the tape of...

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

...

“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...

Renaissance man Spenser - he of the acerbic social commentary, the gourmet cookery, and the steely abs - turns his considerable talents to the unraveling of a thirty-year-old murder mystery. During a 1974 holdup in a Boston bank by a revolutionary group calling itself the Dread Scott Brigade, Emily Gordon, a visitor cashing traveler's checks, is shot and killed. Despite security-camera photos and a letter from the group claiming responsibility, nobody...

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