New Releases by Robert B. Parker

Spenser may have uncovered an explosive secret that threatens the career of a controversial figure, in this latest installment of Robert B. Parker''s beloved series. Vic Hale isn''t anyone''s idea of a father figure. He is one of the biggest – and loudest – podcasters in the nation and got there by spewing overheated rhetoric that''s reviled by some but loved by even more. His particular brand of ''entertainment'' is so successful, he''s about to sign the biggest contract in the history of online broadcasting. Vic''s riding high... until he gets a visit from Spenser, who specialises in bringing guys like Hale back down to Earth. Spenser is there on behalf of Daniel Lopez, a young man who believes Hale may be his father. It''s a potentially explosive revelation for a man in the podcaster''s position and it might even be enough to blow up his massive new deal. That could explain the bodies that start popping up – bodies connected in one way or another with the mystery surrounding Daniel''s birth. There are a lot of questions remaining, and Spenser''s going to have to find the answers before someone shuts Hale or Daniel up for good.

''Spenser''s back with a vengeance'' Best Thriller Books Spenser investigates a case that hits dangerously close to home in this latest installment of Robert B. Parker''s beloved series. Spenser is waiting out the latest Boston snowstorm when he gets word that Rita Fiore has been shot. Rita''s always been a tricky one: flirting with Spenser for years, she''s an ever-present figure that transcends friendship in Spenser''s circle. But at the end of the day, Rita is family. And family will always be protected. Both a pitbull in the courtroom and provocateur outside it, Rita is no stranger to controversy. But as one of the city''s toughest lawyers, Spenser knows that there''s no short list of suspects who might want to enact revenge. With Rita''s life hanging in the balance, it''s up to him to get to the bottom of things, even if it means unearthing some unsavory secrets that might just lead him into an age-old game of lies and deceit.

Based on characters created by Robert B. Parker.

When a flashy, womanizing casino owner, who is implicated in a series of murders, disappears, Cole and Hitch set out on his trail.

Police chief Jesse Stone uncovers a turf war between rival pimps after a young woman is found murdered in a shabby beach motel.

Spenser and his buddy Hawk are helping a couple of troubled friends. The first case involves the denial of tenure for Professor Robinson Nevins. While tenure meetings are always closed-door affairs, Nevins assumes that the recent suicide of graduate student Prentice Lamont (who some claim was having an affair with Nevins) ruined his chances for a coveted permanent position. Spenser and Hawk cut a brawl-strewn path through the members of the tenure committee on their way to the surprising truth of the Nevins case.

Appaloosa New Mexico Territory, 1882: two itinerant lawmen walk their horses down the long,shale-scattered slope into the frontier town of Appaloosa. Below them, lies rancher Randall Braggs'' new kingdom, but Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch are here to restore the rule of law. They''ve done it before, they know what to do only too well: shoot quick, shoot clean, reload. But they aren''t the only new arrivals in town. Mrs Allison French has stepped off the train with only a dollar to her name, a keen sense of survival and a good eye for a strong man. Finding one isn''t going to a problem - Appaloosa is full of them: Cole, Bragg, Hitch. The problem is that Allie French isn''t afraid to hedge her bets... and that Virgil Cole''s heart isn''t as steady as his gun hand. Resolution The dust has yet to settle in the new frontier town of Resolution. It''s barely even a town: a general store, a handful of saloons and a run-down brothel for the workers at a nearby copper mine. No sheriff has been appointed, and gunslingers have taken control. Amid the chaos, itinerant lawman Everett Hitch has created a small haven of order at the Blackfoot Saloon. Charged with protecting the girls who work the back room, Hitch has seen off passing cowboys and violent punters - though it''s his scheming boss, Amos Woolfson, who stirs up the most trouble. When a greedy mine owner threatens the local ranchers, Woolfson ends up at the centre of a makeshift war. Hitch knows only too well how to protect himself, but with the bloodshed mounting, he''s relieved when his friend Virgil Cole rides into town. In a place where justice and order don''t yet exist, Cole and Hitch must lay down the law - without violating their codes of honour, duty and friendship. Brimstone Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch rescue Allie French, Virgil''s former sweetie who ran off to become a prostitute, and head to Brimstone, south Texas. The two gunmen sign on as deputy sheriffs, but Brimstone fails to provide a quiet respite. A mysterious Indian is killing locals, and a brutal saloon owner and corrupt preacher are headed for a showdown...

When Henry Cimoli asks for Spenser''s help with a developer who is sending thugs to pressure Henry to sell his beachfront condo, Spenser and Zebulon Sixkill, follow a trail to a woman, a Vegas kingpin, and plans for a casino.

Territorial Marshals Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch are back in Appaloosa, where things have been exceptionally quiet. Then an ominous storm rolls in, bringing along a band of night riders with a devious scheme who show up at the Rio Blanco camp, where a three-hundred-foot bridge is under construction. When Sheriff Sledge Driskill and his deputies respond, and then go missing, Virgil and Everett saddle up to sort things out.

''I spotted the girl even before she knocked on my door.'' Mattie Sullivan is not Spenser''s typical client. For a start, she''s just fourteen. Nor is her request a typical one - to take a case that''s already been solved. But this kid is wiser than her years. And this case is less clear-cut, and far more dangerous, than it appears.

Halfway through my steak I caught sight of myself in the mirror behind the bar. I looked like someone who ought to eat alone. I didn''t look in the mirror again. Spenser likes to eat well, drink beer, and carve wood on his off-time. But otherwise he''s Spenser for Hire, a wise-acre PI who takes on every case with good humour and brilliant instincts. When Spenser is hired to look into the disappaearance of a medieval manuscript, stolen from a university library, he feels confident it''ll be an easy case. A young university student has been accused of the theft, and Spenser is convinced she''s innocent. It''s not long, however, before he''s plunged into a quagmire of angry professors, bored housewives, heroin traffickers, Satanists and the Boston mob... and murder. The Godwulf Manuscript is the first in Robert B. Parker''s long-running Spenser For Hire series: dark, funny, noir-inspired and utterly unmissable. Inspired by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, The Godwulf Manuscript is not to be missed. ''When it comes to detective novels, 90 per cent of us admit he''s an influence, and the rest of us lie about it'' HARLAN COBEN

From "the reigning champion of the American tough-guy detective novel" (Entertainment Weekly), four novels featuring Jesse Stone, ex-LAPD, now the police chief in Paradise, Massachusetts. Don''t miss these mysteries from the New York Times bestselling author of the Spenser series. Includes: High Profile Stranger in Paradise Night and Day Split Image

Two of the finest early Spenser mysteries in a single volume - this is Classic Robert B. Parker. Promised Land: Harvey Shepard''s wife has run away. Spenser has been hired to find her. A seemingly easy mission: go to Cape Cod, find the missing woman, then sit back and enjoy the sun. But it seems there is more to this case than meets the eye. Who are the shady figures Pam Shepard has been seen with? And why does Harvey keep showing up with bruises? Both Pam and Harvey are in over their heads, and soon Spenser will be too. Looking for Rachel Wallace: Spenser is hired to protect outspoken feminist Rachel Wallace. Left-wing lesbian meets muscles and machismo. Chalk meets cheese. It is not long before Rachel fires him. Then she disappears. Spenser feels it is his duty to save her. And once he has made up his mind then no bigot, Klansman, or family will get in his way. He will not stop until he finds Rachel Wallace. ''One of the great series in the history of the American detective story'' New York Times

The Boston PI gets tangled in Cape Cod''s criminal underworld in this Edgar Award–winning mystery from the New York Times–bestselling author. Cape Cod businessman Harvey Shepard is in over his head. He lost a quarter million on a shady real estate deal, the loan shark is circling, and now he needs a private investigator to find out where his wife, Pam, disappeared to. Spencer takes the case, but finding Pam isn''t the hard part—the hard part is finding out she''s suspected of a bank robbery that led to murder. Robert B. Parker''s Spencer novels featuring the former boxer turned Boston PI are "one of the great series in the history of the American detective story." Promised Land, the Edgar Award–winning fourth Spencer novel, was also adapted into the pilot episode of the classic tv series Spencer: For Hire ( The New York Times).

For almost forty years, Robert B. Parker''s inimitable private investigator Spenser has been solving cases and selling millions of books worldwide. Now, for the first time, see how it all began as the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master sheds light on Spenser''s formative years spent with his father and two uncles out West. This is an event book for every fan of Spenser, and a revelation for teens about to discover an American icon.

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.

The return of the Western, from the legendary Robert B Parker, one of the US''s bestselling authors. New Mexico Territory, 1882: two itinerant lawmen walk their horses down the long, shale-scattered slope into the frontier town of Appaloosa. Below them, lies rancher Randall Braggs'' new fiefdom. Ever since he gunned down Appaloosa''s marshal, Braggs and his men have owned the town, stealing, beating, murdering with impunity. Living off it like coyotes feeding off a dead buffalo carcass. Summoned by Appaloosa''s oppressed aldermen, Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch are here to restore the rule of law. They''ve done it before, they know what to do only too well: shoot quick, shoot clean, reload. But they aren''t the only new arrivals in town. The enigmatic Mrs Allison French has stepped off the train with only a dollar to her name, a keen sense of survival and a good eye for a strong man. Finding one isn''t going to be a problem - Appaloosa is full of them: Cole, Bragg, Hitch. The problem is that Allie French isn''t afraid to hedge her bets... and that Virgil Cole''s heart isn''t as steady as his gun hand. APPALOOSA is an intelligent, emotionally profound novel, told in bone-clean prose wryly leavened with whip-sharp dialogue. It''s deeply satisfying on four levels: one, it''s a well-told historical adventure and a modern re-interpretation of a classic theme; two, it''s an ode to unassailable friendship; three it''s a subtle love story between two profoundly flawed people; and four, the way Parker writes, you''d swear the pages turn themselves.

In the wild and untamed West, two honorable gunfighters find themselves caught in a gritty battle that threatens the peaceful town of Resolution. After relocating to an Old-West saloon town after the bloody confrontation in Appaloosa, Everett Hitch is relieved by the arrival of his friend, Virgil Cole. In a place where law and order don’t exist, Hitch and Cole find themselves at the center of a make-shift war against Eamon O’Malley, a greedy mine owner, and his men who threaten to gobble up Resolution''s land and businesses. Guided by their sense of duty, honor, and friendship, Everett Hitch and Virgil Cole fight to defend a coalition of local ranchers and challenge the violently shifting laws of the West.

When the body of controversial talk-show host Walton Weeks is discovered hanging from a tree on the outskirts of Paradise, police chief Jesse Stone finds himself at the centre of a highly public case, forcing him to deal with small-minded local officials and national media scrutiny. When another dead body - that of a young woman - is found just two days later, the pressure becomes almost unbearable. Two victims in less than a week should provide a host of clues, but all Jesse runs into are dead ends...

A horrifying school shooting draws Boston PI Spenser into a harrowing investigation in this thriller by New York Times bestselling author Robert B. Parker. When a Massachusetts boy is accused of mass murder, his socially prominent grandmother is convinced of his innocence and is willing to fight for him. But based on the boy’s resigned attitude and the evidence stacked against him, Spenser isn’t convinced of anything—except that there’s trouble ahead...

In Stone Cold, Jesse Stone has a problem no officer of the law likes to face: dead bodies keep appearing, but clues do not. A man takes his dog out for a run on the beach, only to be discovered hours later--with two holes in his chest. A woman drives her Volvo to the mall to do some grocery shopping, and is found dead, her body crumpled behind her loaded shopping cart. A commuter takes a shortcut home from the train, and never makes it back to his house. Hunting down a serial killer is difficult and dangerous in any town, but in a town like Paradise, where the selectmen and the media add untold pressures, Jesse begins to feel the heat. Already walking an emotional tightrope, Jesse begins to stumble: he's spending too much time with the bottle--and with his ex-wife--neither of which helps him, or the case. And 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. As tough, clear-eyed, and sardonic as Jesse Stone himself, this is the Grand Master working at the peak of his powers.

“Parker pretty much defies category altogether in this deeply felt and intimately told memory tale, which takes place during the historic baseball season of 1947...Fusing this chapter of sports history with a hard-boiled gangster plot and haunting recollections of his own Boston boyhood, Parker fashions a hugely entertaining fiction.”—The New York Times 1947: Jackie Robinson breaks major-league baseball’s color barrier—and changes the world. The event also changes the life of Joseph Burke, veteran of World War II and Robinson’s bodyguard—because under the media spotlight, hard truths are easier than ever to see, and harder to escape. And some can prove fatal.

“[Parker''s found] the pitch-perfect voice for a guy who is straining every muscle to cut down on the booze, hang on to his new job as police chief, and not get rattled by the body of a teenage girl”(The New York Times) in this bestselling mystery in the Jesse Stone series. Robert B. Parker takes readers back in Paradise, where Detective Jesse Stone is looking for two things: the killer of a teenage girl—and someone, anyone, who is willing to claim the body... The local cops haven''t seen anything like this, but Jesse''s L.A. past has made him all too familiar with floaters. This girl hadn''t committed suicide; she hadn''t been drowned: she''d been shot and dumped, discarded like trash. Before long it becomes clear that she had a taste for the wild life; and her own parents can''t be bothered to report her missing, or even admit that she once was a child of theirs. All Jesse has to go on is a young man''s school ring on a gold chain, and a hunch or two. Filled with magnetic characters and the muscular writing that are Parker''s trademarks, Death in Paradise is a storytelling masterpiece.

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 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.

"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 by a local gang - a twenty-first-century posse of desert rats, misfits, drunks, and scavengers - the local police seem powerless. Led by a charismatic individual known only as The Preacher, this motley band of thieves selectively exploits the town, nurturing it as a source of wealth while systematically robbing the residents blind." "Enter Spenser, who has been hired by the comely Mary Lou Buckman to investigate the murder of her husband. The Buckmans, a pair of L.A. transplants, moved to Potshot and started a modest outdoor tour service. It is Mary Lou''s belief that when her husband refused to pay The Preacher and his men protection money, he was killed. Without any witnesses, Spenser has little to go on, and it''s clear the local police chief won''t be doing much to help. Calling on his own cadre of tried-and-true cohorts, including Vinnie Morris, Bobby Horse, Chollo, Bernard J. Fortunato, Tedy Sapp, and the redoubtable Hawk, Spenser must find a way to beat the gang at their own dangerous game."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Robert B. Parker and his legendary Spenser series have long been considered the ne plus ultra of detective fiction. But the critics'' praise for Jesse Stone''s debut in Night Passage proved there was room for an addition to the Parker literary canon. "A novel as fresh as it is bold?Parker''s sentences flow with as much wit, grace, and assurance as ever, and Stone is a complex and consistently interesting new protagonist. His speedy return will be welcome" (Newsday).Stiles Island is a wealthy and exclusive enclave separated by a bridge from the Massachusetts coast town of Paradise. James Macklin sees Stiles Island as the ultimate investment opportunity: all he needs to do is invade the island, blow up the bridge, and loot the island. To realize his investment, 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.Filled with "light, shade, texture, and complexity" (The Boston Globe), Trouble in Paradise is the work of a master.

Spenser creator Robert B. Parker returns with his newest heroine, Boston P.I. Sunny Randall, coming to the aid of three very different women in three very dangerous situations. One is for business. One is for a friend. One is for family. And all could be fatal ...

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

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.