Showing results by author "Robert B. Parker" in All Categories

Autumn in Paradise, Massachusetts, is usually an idyllic time - but not this year. A Hollywood movie company has come to town, and brought with it a huge cast, crew, and a troubled star. Marisol Hinton is very beautiful, reasonably talented, and scared out of her wits that her estranged husband's jealousy might take a dangerous turn. When she becomes the subject of a death threat, Jesse and the rest of the Paradise police department go on high alert.

The Sternwood family, immortalized in Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, is in trouble again. Lovely Vivian's psychotic sister, Carmen, has disappeared from the sanitarium, and Vivian herself has once again fallen into the clutches of the shady underworld character Eddie Mars. Enter Philip Marlowe, the original tough-but-tender private eye, resurrected by Robert B. Parker, creator of his own phenomenally popular Spenser mystery series. He saved the Sternwoods once before. The question is: Can he do it again?

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.

Robert B. Parker takes listeners into the murky big-city underground. Spenser undertakes an intense search for a beautiful, missing prostitute, and finds himself traveling amidst the sleaze of Times Square, where sex is a commodity, and young girls are the currency.

In Stone Cold, Police Chief Jesse Stone has a problem - actually, two problems - dead bodies turning up, and no clues. A man takes his dog out for a run on the beach, only to be discovered hour later with two holes in his chest. A woman drives her Volvo to the mall to do some grocery shopping, never makes it back to her house and is found dead. Investigating a serial killer in an affluent suburban town is difficult, and with the added pressures from the town selectmen and media, the heat is turned up on Jesse. The harder these outside forces push against him, the more Jesse retreats into himself, convinced - despite all the odds - that it's up to him alone to stop the killing.

Spenser is investigating the Port City Theater Company, where the director claims he's being stalked. When an actor is shot dead during a performance, all clues lead to the local Chinese Mafia, whose roots run deep in this drab waterfront city. With Hawk and ex mobster Vinnie assisting, Spenser eventually triumphs in one of his most compelling adventures.

Heidi Bradshaw is wealthy, beautiful, and well-connected - and she needs Spenser's help. In a most unlikely request, Heidi, a notorious golddigger recently separated from her latest husband, recruits the Boston P.I. to accompany her to her private island, Tashtego, for her daughter's wedding. Spenser is unsure of what his role as personal bodyguard will entail, but he consents when it's decided that he can bring his beloved Susan Silverman along.

Marlowe is back...and he's married to a rich, beautiful society lady who wants him to settle down in the posh desert community of Poodle Springs. Marlowe may have married rich, but old habits die hard: he's hired to recover a gambling debt and soon finds himself in a case involving bigamy, pornography and murder. The first four chapters of this final Marlowe mystery were written by noir master Raymond Chandler at the end of his life. Robert B. Parker was chosen by Chandler's estate to complete his last work.

TV reporter Candy Sloan has eyes the color of cornflowers and legs that stretch all the way to heaven. She also has somebody threatening to rearrange her lovely face if she keeps on snooping into charges of Hollywood racketeering. Spenser's job is to keep Candy healthy until she breaks the biggest story of her career.

When Marlene Cowley hires Spenser to see if her husband Trent is cheating on her, he encounters more than he bargained for: not only does he find a two-timing husband, but a second investigator as well, hired by the husband to look after his wife. As a result of their joint efforts, Spenser soon finds himself investigating both individual depravity and corporate corruption.

Spenser is forced by loyalty into an alien world where violence is a way of lie 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 Deuce," he enlists his friend's aid. A friend's 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.

When it comes to writing, Robert B. Parker knows no boundaries. From the iconic Spenser detective series and the novels featuring Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone, to the groundbreaking historical novel Double Play, Parker's imagination has taken readers from Boston to Brooklyn and back again. In Appaloosa, fans are taken on another trip, to the untamed territories of the West during the 1800s.

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 his client.

Spenser knows something's amiss the moment Dennis Doherty walks into his office. The guy's aggressive yet wary, in the way men frightened for their marriages always are. So when Doherty asks Spenser to investigate his wife Jordan's abnormal behavior, Spenser agrees. A job's a job, after all.

Spenser's out to make war, not love, as he goes after Boston's entire X-rated industry. Pretty teenager April Kyle has disappeared into the city's darkest underworld, and to rescue her, Spencer pits muscle and wit against bullets and bullies.

Caught in a snowstorm of drugs, passion, and hate, Spenser investigates a cocaine-related murder.

When a Hollywood-based TV series schedules filming in Boston, Spenser smells trouble. When he signs up to protect the show's star, Jill Joyce, he knows it's on its way. First, there's Jill herself. She's spoiled, arrogant, drugged out -- made worse by fear. Someone is out to get her -- does she imagine it, or is it real?

Police chief Jesse Stone has received his share of unusual calls, but none can top the one from the local junior high school. When reports of lewd conduct by the school's principal, Betsy Ingersoll, filter into the station, Jesse is faced with a particularly delicate situation. Jesse, of course, would like nothing more than to see the prim, peculiar Ingersoll punished. But Betsy Ingersoll is married to the managing partner of the biggest law firm in the state, and Jay Ingersoll wants the matter buried.

On location in Boston, bad-boy actor Jumbo Nelson is accused of the rape and murder of a young woman. From the start the case seems fishy, so the Boston PD calls on Spenser to investigate. Things don't look so good for Jumbo, whose appetites for food, booze, and sex are as outsized as his name. He was the studio's biggest star, but he's become its biggest liability...

A serial killer is on the loose in Beantown and the cops can't catch him. But when the killer leaves his red rose calling card for Spenser's own Susan Silverman, he gets all the attention that Spenser and Hawk can give. 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.