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

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 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.

After a busted marriage kicks his drinking problem into overdrive and the LAPD unceremoniously dumps him, 35-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.

Hired by a wealthy family to locate their teenage daughter, Sunny Randall, a former cop turned Boston P.I., soon finds herself the bodyguard for a difficult teenager who refuses to return to her family. But before long, Sunny is facing greater problems than she ever imagined including a criminal conspiracy that reaches to the top of the state government.

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.

Connie Kelly thought she'd found her perfect man on an online dating site. He was silver-haired and handsome, with a mysterious background working for the CIA. She fell so hard for M. Brooks Welles that she wrote him a check for almost 300,000 dollars, hoping for a big return on her investment. But within weeks, both Welles and her money are gone. Her therapist, Dr. Susan Silverman, hands her Spenser's card.

Lily Ellsworth, erect, firm, white-haired, and stylish, is the grand dame of Dowling, Massachusetts, and possesses an iron will and a bottomless purse. When she hires Spenser to investigate her grandson Jared Clark's alleged involvement in a school shooting, Spenser is led into an inquiry that grows more harrowing at every turn. 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.

When we last saw Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch, they had just put things to right in the rough-and-tumble Old West town of Resolution. It's now a year later, and Virgil has only one thing on his mind: Allie French, the woman who stole his heart from their days in Appaloosa. Even though Allie ran off with another man, Virgil is determined to find her, his deputy and partner Everett Hitch at his side.

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.

It’s been a long time since Jesse Stone left L.A., and still longer since the tragic injury that ruined his chances for a major league baseball career. When Jesse is invited to a reunion of his old Triple-A team at a hip New York City hotel, he is forced to grapple with his memories and regrets over what might have been. He left more behind him than unresolved feelings about the play that ended his baseball career. The darkly sensuous Kayla, his former girlfriend and current wife of an old teammate is there in New York...

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.

After the bloody confrontation in Appaloosa, Everett Hitch heads into the afternoon sun and ends up in Resolution, an Old West town so new the dust has yet to settle. It's the kind of town that doesn't have much in the way of commerce, except for a handful of saloons and some houses of ill repute.

"Law enforcement in Appaloosa had once been Virgil Cole and me. Now there was a chief of police and 12 policemen." The new chief is Amos Callico, a tall, fat man in a derby hat, wearing a star on his vest and a big pearl-handled Colt inside his coat. An ambitious man with his eye on the governorship - and perhaps the presidency - he wants Cole and Hitch on his side. But they can't be bought, which upsets him mightily.

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.

Big-time Boston hoodlum Julius Ventura wants to find his only daughter's missing husband - at least that's how he puts it to Spenser and Hawk, even though its pretty clear that Julius isn't telling the whole truth. Or maybe not any part of the truth. Something about the case appeals to Spenser's passion for justice, and he launches an odyssey that takes the tough-but-tender duo with their penchant for literary allusions into the netherworld of organized crime.

The body in the trunk was just the beginning. Turns out the stiff was a foot soldier for local tough guy Reggie Galen, now enjoying a comfortable “retirement” with his beautiful wife, Rebecca, in the nicest part of Paradise. Living next door are Knocko Moynihan and his wife, Robbie, who also happens to be Rebecca’s twin. But what initially appears to be a low-level mob hit takes on new meaning when a high-ranking crime figure is found dead on Paradise Beach.

Spenser is good at finding things. But this time he has a client out on Cape Cod who is in over his head. Harvey Shepard has lost his pretty wife - and a very pretty quarter million bucks in real estate. Now a loan shark is putting on the bite.

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.

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.

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 center of a highly public case. When another dead body, that of a young woman, is discovered just a few days later, the pressure to solve the crimes becomes almost unbearable.

The heist was legendary, still talked about 20 years after the priceless paintings disappeared from one of Boston's premier art museums. Most thought the art was lost forever, buried deep, sold off overseas, or, worse, destroyed as incriminating evidence. But when paint chips from the most valuable piece stolen, Gentlemen in Black by a Spanish master, arrives at the desk of a Boston journalist, the museum finds hope and enlists Spenser's help.