Robert B. Parker
1) Back Story
Author
Series
Spenser novels volume 30
Formats
Description
In this 30th entry in one of mystery fiction's longest-running and best-loved series, Spenser--the tough yet sensitive Boston private eye with no first name--takes on an unsolved murder nearly three decades old. The client, an actress, is a friend of Paul Giacomin, Spenser's surrogate son (who first appeared in 1981's Early Autumn). Her mother was slain by leftist radicals at a bank holdup in 1974, and now she wants to know who fired the shot. As...
2) Perish twice
Author
Series
Sunny Randall mysteries volume 2
Description
Sunny Randall comes to the aid of three women, with deadly consequences. Hired by prominent feminists Mary Lou Goddard, Sunny must contend with Goddard's reluctance to reveal all she knows about the unwelcome attentions bestowed on her.
Author
Series
Jesse Stone mysteries volume 1
Pub. Date
c1997
Formats
Description
The book opens as Stone leaves California for his new job as chief of police in the picturesque town of Paradise, Massachusetts. But Paradise isn't as placid as it seems--in fact, it's a festering mass of petty corruption, right-wing militia, sexual scandal, and bad guys who favor strong-arm tactics. Night Passage boasts a delicious, classic setup: the lone lawman, new in town, must make his stand to clean the place up. Stone has been picked for the...
5) Shrink Rap
Author
Series
Sunny Randall mysteries volume 3
Formats
Description
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.
Author
Series
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 3.3 - AR Pts: 6
Formats
Description
A knock on Spenser's office door can only mean one thing: a new case. This time the visitor is a local lawyer with an interesting story. Elizabeth Shaw specializes in wills and trusts at the Boston law firm of Shaw & Cartwright, and over the years she's developed a friendship with wives of very wealthy men. However, these rich wives have a mutual secret: they've all had an affair with a man named Gary Eisenhower- and now he's blackmailing them for...
8) High profile
Author
Series
Description
The murder of Walton Weeks, a Rush Limbaughlike political commentator in sleepy Paradise, Mass., drives the action of bestseller Parker's competent whodunit, a sequel of sorts to Blue Screen (2006), which first paired two of the authors' non-Parker series charactersJess Stone, an ex-LAPD detective trying to resurrect his career as Paradise's police chief, and PI Sunny Randallwith predictable romantic results. After a stalker...
9) Resolution
Author
Series
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 3.3 - AR Pts: 6
Formats
Description
After the bloody confrontation in Appaloosa, Everett Hitch ends up in Resolution. He takes a job as lookout at Amos Wolfson's Blackfoot Saloon and protector of the ladies who work the backrooms and is a man unafraid to stand up to the enforcer sent from the O'Malley copper mine. Though Hitch makes short work of hired gun Koy Wickman, tensions continue to mount. Hitch is relieved by the arrival of his friend Virgil Cole. When greedy mine owner Eamon...
10) Melancholy baby
Author
Series
Pub. Date
[2004]
Description
Boston P.I. Sunny Randall-as conflicted as she is beautiful-helps a troubled young woman locate her birth parents only to uncover some dark truths of her own. My ex-husband was getting married to a woman I wanted to kill. I didn't actually know her, and killing her would only make matters worse. But I got as much pleasure out of the idea as I could before I had to let go of it. And so begins Melancholy Baby, the fourth novel in the bestselling series...
11) Bad business
Author
Series
Spenser novels volume 31
Formats
Description
Hired by Marlene Cowley to find out whether her husband, Trent, is cheating on her, Spenser soon realizes that the two-timing husband has hired an investigator of his own. Even more shocking for Spenser is the discovery that the Cowleys are a part of an intimate circle that regularly tunes in to the talk-show host Darin O'Mara's unconventional--and possibly deadly--views on cross-connubial relationships. To complicate matters even more, a murder occurs...
12) Crimson joy
Author
Series
Pub. Date
©1988
Formats
Description
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.
Author
Series
Jesse Stone mysteries volume 3
Description
The Paradise Men's Softball League has wrapped up another game, and Jesse Stone is lingering in the parking lot with friends, when a frightened voice calls out to him from a nearby lake.
14) Painted ladies
Author
Series
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 3.8 - AR Pts: 7
Formats
Description
Called upon by The Hammond Museum and renowned art scholar Dr. Ashton Prince, 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. Convinced that Ashton Prince played a bigger role than just ransom delivery boy, Spenser enters into a daring game of cat-and-mouse with the thieves. But this...
15) Blue screen
Author
Series
Formats
Description
"Sunny Randall, the Boston P.I. with a personal life as tangled as that of her clients, is hired on as bodyguard to an up-and-coming starlet, and discovers some ugly truths behind her glossy facade." "Buddy Bollen is a C-list movie mogul who made his fortune producing films of questionable artistic merit. When Buddy hires Sunny Randall to protect his rising star and girlfriend, Erin Flint, Sunny knows from the start that the prickly, spoiled beauty...
Author
Series
Formats
Description
Spenser, a Boston PI, is once again hired by April Kyle who was a teenage runaway that turned to prostitution. Now she is a madam of an up-scale, all-female operation that some men are trying to take away from her. April claims she doesn't know who is after her business, but Spenser finds ties to organized crime. Spenser without much surprise also finds that April, the thugs and everyone else involved is lying to him.
17) Double play
Author
Formats
Description
In 1947, as Jackie Robinson breaks the major league baseball color barrier by playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Joseph Burke, a World War II veteran and survivor of Guadalcanal, is hired by Dodgers manager Branch Rickey to be Robinson's bodyguard.
18) Hugger mugger
Author
Series
Spenser novels volume 27
Formats
Description
Boston P.I. Spenser heads down South where someone is making death threats against a thoroughbred horse destined to be the next Secretariat. As Spenser arrives at the horse owner's request, he finds that down in Dixie, the lies are buzzing--and the dying ...
19) Spare change
Author
Series
Formats
Description
When the Spare Change Killer resurfaces after three decades they call on retired cop, Phil Randall who headed the original investigation and he calls in his daughter Sunny for help. She's sure she has found the killer but has no proof. When the next two victims resemble Sunny her father insists she drop the case, but she wants to create a trap to catch him.
20) Stardust
Author
Series
Spenser novels volume 17
Description
"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? Spenser monitors her neurosis, but finds evidence of harassment. It escalates to murder. Now begins the dangerous part -- while...