New Releases by Robert B Parker

Robert B. Parker introduces readers to police chief Jesse Stone in the first novel in the beloved mystery series—a New York Times bestseller. After a busted marriage kicks his drinking problem into overdrive and the LAPD unceremoniously dumps him, thirty-five-year-old Jesse Stone’s future looks bleak. So he’s shocked when a small Massachusetts town called Paradise recruits him as police chief. He can’t help wondering if this job is a genuine chance to start over, the kind of offer he can’t refuse. Once on board, Jesse doesn’t have to look for trouble in Paradise: it comes to him. For what is on the surface a quiet New England community quickly proves to be a crucible of political and moral corruption—replete with triple homicide, tight Boston mob ties, flamboyantly errant spouses, maddened militiamen and a psychopath-about-town who has fixed his violent sights on the new lawman. Against all this, Jesse stands utterly alone, with no one to trust—even he and the woman he’s seeing are like ships passing in the night. He finds he must test his mettle and powers of command to emerge a local hero—or the deadest of dupes.

Spenser creator Robert B. Parker turns his eye to the Old West with his stirring rendition of the legendary exploits of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, the Clanton Gang, and the fateful gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

"Robert B. Parker has always been a master of razor-sharp and witty dialogue, hard-driving suspense and memorable characterization," says the Houston Chronicle. With both the classic Spenser series and the more recent Jesse Stone novels, Parker''s spare prose and tight storytelling have earned him critical praise and popular success in equal measure. In Family Honor, he creates an entirely new character--young, smart, and, for the first time, female.Her name is Sunny Randall, a Boston P.I. and former cop, a college graduate, an aspiring painter, a divorcee, and the owner of a miniature bullterrier named Rosie. Hired by a wealthy family to locate their teenage daughter, Sunny is tested by the parents'' preconceived notion of what a detective should be. With the help of underworld contacts she tracks down the runaway Millicent, who has turned to prostitution, rescues her from her pimp, and finds herself, at thirty-four, the unlikely custodian of a difficult teenager when the girl refuses to return to her family.But Millicent''s problems are rooted in much larger crimes than running away, and Sunny, now playing the role of bodyguard, is caught in a shooting war with some very serious mobsters. She turns for help to her ex-husband, Richie, himself the son of a mob family, and to her dearest friend, Spike, a flamboyant and dangerous gay man. Heading this unlikely alliance, Sunny must solve at least one murder, resolve a criminal conspiracy that reaches to the top of state government, and bring Millicent back into functional young womanhood.

Jesse Stone returns in this New York Times bestselling novel of death and deception from Robert B. Parker. Stiles Island is a wealthy and exclusive enclave separated by a bridge from the Massachusetts coast town of Paradise. James Macklin sees the Island as the ultimate investment opportunity: all he needs to do is invade it, blow the bridge, and loot the island. To realize his scheme, Macklin, along with his devoted girlfriend, Faye, assembles a crew of fellow ex-cons—all experts in their fields—including Wilson Cromartie, a fearsome Apache. James Macklin is a bad man, a very bad man. And Wilson Cromartie, known as Crow, is even worse. As Macklin plans his crime, Paradise police chief Jesse Stone has his hands full. He faces romantic entanglements in triplicate: his ex-wife, Jenn, is in the Paradise jail for assault, he’s begun a new relationship with a Stiles Island realtor named Marcy Campbell, and he’s still sorting out his feelings for attorney Abby Taylor. When Macklin’s attack on Stiles Island is set in motion, both Marcy and Abby are put in jeopardy. As the casualties mount, it’s up to Jesse to keep both women from harm.

They were the Sheridan men, ruled by passion, betrayed by love, heirs to a legacy of violence and forbidden desire. Gus, Boston''s top homicide cop: he knew equally well the backroom politics of City Hall and the private passions of the very rich, a man haunted by the wanton courage and perilous obsessions he inherited from his father... Conn, the patriarch, a lawless cop who spawned a circle of vengeance and betrayal that would span half a century... and Chris, Gus''s beloved son, a Harvard lawyer and criminologist, fated to risk everything to break the chain of obsession and rage... Three generations linked by crime and punishment--cops and heroes, fathers, sons, and lovers united at last by revelations that could bring a family to its knees...

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 and wittiest P.I. on the block.”—The New York Times

Boston PI Spenser investigates the perfect murder in this New York Times bestselling mystery in Robert B. Parker’s acclaimed series. 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... “Among the best Spensers...Parker''s at the top of his game!”—Boston Globe

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. Before they can solve the crime, Spenser and Hawk must take on an adolescent band of hardened urban warriors. As bullets fly and the brutality escalates, Spenser learns more than he ever dreamed about a generation imprisoned in a hell of poverty and hopelessness where muscle is the ticket to survival, and the surest way out is in a body bag. Pulsing with moral complexity, Double Deuce is the kind of no-holds-barred action thriller only Robert B. Parker can create.

A part of Dell''s Robert B. Parker reissue program, this newly packaged, thrill-a-minute mystery will keep the adrenaline flowing. Praise for Parker''s popular private eye Spenser: "Tough, wisecracking, unafraid, and unexpectedly literate--in many respects (Spencer''s) the very exemplar of the species".--The New York Times.

The most personal and revealing Spenser thriller of all, Pastime is Robert B. Parker''s electrifying masterpeice of crime fiction--a startling game of memory, desire, and danger that forces Spenser to face his own past. Ten years ago, he saved a teenage boy from a father''s rage. Now, on the brink of manhood, the boy seeks answers to his mother''s sudden disapearance. Spenser is the only man he can turn to. This time, it''s more than a routine search for a missing person--Spenser must search his own soul...

"What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on a top of a high hill. You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep..." Raymond Chandler wrote those immortal words on the final page of his first Marlowe thriller in 1939. Today, The Big Sleep is considered the all-time masterpiece of hard-boiled suspense. Now detective Philip Marlowe has returned--in this electrifying sequel by Chandler''s acclaimed successor, Robert B. Parker, author of the bestselling Spenser mysteries...

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...

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.

“Ebullient entertainment.”—Time A hotshot reporter is dead. He''d gone to take a look-see at “Miami North”—little Wheaton, Massachusetts—the biggest cocaine distribution center above the Mason-Dixon line. Did the kid die for getting too close to the truth . . . or to a sweet lady with a jealous husband? Spenser will stop at nothing to find out. Praise for Robert B. Parker''s Spenser novels “Like Philip Marlowe, Spenser is a man of honor in a dishonorable world. When he says he will do something, it is done. The dialogues zings, and there is plenty of action . . . but it is the moral element that sets them above most detective fiction.”—Newsweek “Crackling dialogue, plenty of action and expert writing . . . Unexpectedly literate—[Spenser is] in many respects the very exemplar of the species.”—The New York Times “They just don’t make private eyes tougher or funnier.”—People “Parker has a recorder’s ear for dialogue, an agile wit . . . and, strangely enough, a soupçon of compassion hidden under that sardonic, flip exterior.”—Los Angeles Times “A deft storyteller, a master of pace.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer “Spenser probably had more to do with changing the private eye from a coffin-chaser to a full-bodied human being than any other detective hero.”—The Chicago Sun-Times “[Spenser is] tough, intelligent, wisecracking, principled, and brave.”—The New Yorker

Spenser''s interest in teenage prostitute April Kyle leads him to Robert Rambeaux, ersatz Juilliard student and April''s pimp, and to Ginger Bucky, another of Rambeaux''s hookers, who suddenly turns up dead

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