The Spencer Series

1. The Godwulf Manuscript (1973)
   Spenser earned his degree in the school of hard knocks, so he is ready when a Boston university hires him to recover a rare, stolen manuscript. He is hardly surpised that his only clue is a radical student with four bullets in his chest.
   
   The cops are ready to throw the book at the pretty blond coed whose prints are all over the murder weapon but Spenser knows there are no easy answers. He tackles some very heavy homework and knows that if he doesn't finish his assignment soon, he could end up marked "D" -- for dead.

2. God Save the Child (1974)
   Appie Knoll is the kind of suburb where kids grow up right. But something is wrong. Fourteen-year-old Kevin Bartlett disappears. Everyone thinks he's run away -- until the comic strip ransom note arrives.
   
   It doesn't take Spenser long to get the picture -- an affluent family seething with rage, a desperate boy making strange friends...friends like Vic Harroway, body builder. Mr. Muscle is Spenser's only lead and he isn't talking...except with his fists. But when push comes to shove, when a boy's life is on the line, Spenser can speak that language too.

3. Mortal Stakes (1975)
   Everybody loves a winner, and the Rabbs are major league. Marty is the Red Sox star pitcher, Linda the loving wife. She loves everyone except the blackmailer out to wreck her life.
   
   Is Marty throwing fast balls or throwing games? It doesn't take long for Spenser to link Marty's performance with Linda's past...or to find himself trapped between a crazed racketeer and an enforcer toting an M-16.
   
   America's favorite pastime has suddenly become a very dangerous sport, and one wrong move means strike three, with Spenser out for good!

4. Promised Land (1976)
   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.
   
   sSpenser finds himself doing a slow burn in the Cape Cod sun. The wife has turned up as a hot suspect in a case of murder one...the in-hock hubby has 24 hours before the mob makes him dead . . . and suddenly Spenser is in so deep that the only way out is so risky it makes dying look like a sure thing.

5. The Judas Goat (1978)
   Spenser has gone to London -- and not to see the Queen. He's gone to track down a bunch of bombers who've blown away his client's wife and kids. His job is to catch them. Or kill them. His client isn't choosy.
   
   sBut there are nine killers to one Spenser -- long odds. Hawk helps balance the equation. The rest depends on a wild plan. Spenser will get one of the terrorists to play Judas Goat -- to lead him to others. Trouble is, he hasn't counted on her being very blond, very beautiful and very dangerous.

6. Looking for Rachel Wallace (1980)
   Rachel Wallace is a woman who writes and speaks her mind. She has made a lot of enemies -- enemies who threaten her life.
   
   Spenser is the tough guy with a macho code of honor, hired to protect a woman who thinks that code is obsolete.
   
   Privately, they will never see eye to eye. That's why she fires him. But when Rachel vanishes, Spenser rattles skeletons in blue-blooded family closets, tangles with the Klan and fights for her right to be exactly what she is. He is ready to lay his life on the line to find Rachel Wallace.

7. Early Autumn (1981)
   A bitter divorce is only the beginning. First the father hires thugs to kidnap his son. Then the mother hires Spenser to get the boy back. But as soon as Spenser senses the lay of the land, he decides to do some kidnapping of his own.
   
   With a contract out on his life, he heads for the Maine woods, determined to give a puny 15 year old a crash course in survival and to beat his dangerous opponents at their own brutal game.

8. A Savage Place (1981)

9. Ceremony (1982)
   Pretty teenager April Kyle is in grown-up-trouble, involved with people who'd beat her up for a dollar and kill her for five. Now she's disappeared, last seen in the Combat Zone, that side of Boston where nothing's proper, especially the sex for sale.
   
   sWith Hawk, his sidekick, Spenser takes on the whole X-rated industry. From a specialty whorehouse in Providence to stylish Back Bay bordellos, he pits muscle and wit against bullets and brawn until he finds what he's looking for: April Kyle, little girl lost.

10. The Widening Gyre (1983)
    The adoring wife of a senatorial candidate has a smile as sweet as candy and dots her "i's" with little hearts. A blond beauty, she is the perfect mate for an ambitious politician, but she has a little problem with sex and drugs -- a problem someone has managed to put on videotape.
    
    The big boys figure a little blackmail will put her husband out of the race. Until Spenser hops on the candidate's bandwagon.
    
    But getting back the tape of the lady's X-rated indiscretion is a nonstop express ride to trouble -- trouble that is deep, wide and deadly.

11. Valediction (1984)
    The most dangerous man to cross is one who isn't afraid to die. But the most deadly is one who doesn't want to live. And Spenser has just lost the woman who made life his #1 priority.
    
    sSo when a religious sect kidnaps a pretty young dancer, no death threat can make Spenser cut and run. Now a hit man's bullet is wearing Spenser's name. But Boston's big boys don't know Spenser's ready and willing to meet death more than halfway.

12. A Catskill Eagle (1985)
    In the detective business, Spenser sometimes has to bend the law. Other times, to break it. But he lives by his own inviolate rules. And he loves just one woman -- even though she is the one woman he's just lost.
    
    So when Susan's desperate letter arrives, Spenser doesn't think twice. His best friend, Hawk, faces a life sentence. And Susan has gotten herself into even bigger trouble. Now Spenser has to free them both . . . even if it means breaking his own rules to do it.

13. Taming a Sea-Horse (1986)
    Nice girls don't. But blond, beautiful April Kyle does. She's a hooker hooked on the wrong guy -- and she's on her way to trouble. So is Spenser.
    
    Looking out for April has landed him in the crud of Times Square. It's not a long way to big-business boardrooms where blood money get laundered into long green, sex is a commodity, and young girls are the currency.

14. Pale Kings and Princes (1987)
    Wheaton is a typical New England small-college town, not the sort of place for drugs and murder. But when a reporter gets too inquisitive, he finds both -- the latter on his own.
    
    Spenser's call comes when the local cops work a cover. He needs help to solve this one -- Hawk for back-up and Susan for insight on the basics of jealousy, passion and hate!
    
    What the trio finds is a cutthroat cocaine ring, where drugs have value supreme and human life has none at all.

15. Crimson Joy (1988)
    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.

16. Playmates (1989)
    Spenser smells corruption in a college town. Taft University's hottest basketball star is shaving points for quick cash. All manner of sleaze -- from corrupt academics to hoods with graduate degrees -- have their fingers in the pot.
    
    Spenser's search takes him from lecture halls to blue collar bars and finally into a bloody confrontation with almost certain death. But Spenser saves an arrogant young athlete -- even though it nearly kills him to do it.

17. Stardust (1990)
    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 the act may have ended, the murderer lingers on.

18. Pastime (1991)
    In a game of desire and danger, Parker brings back the characters of his classic Spenser novel, Early Autumn. When his mother disappears, 24-year-old Paul turns to Spenser for help. Spenser knows the only way to find Patty is to reach back into her past, of which he knows too well.

19. Double Deuce (1992)
    Hawk wants Spenser to wage war on a street gang. Susan wants Spenser to move in with her. Either way, Spenser's out of his element. So why not risk both?

20. Paper Doll (1993)
    Spenser tracks a mystery woman who refuses to rest in peace, in Robert B. Parker's most beguiling thriller yet. Sam Spade. Philip Marlowe. Lew Archer. Spenser. Like his legendary predecessors, the tough and classy Boston PI has become an American institution. With Paper Doll, Robert B. Parker takes Spenser down a sinister path, where every welcome masks a warning and identity is paper-thin. Hired by Loudon Tripp, an aggrieved Boston aristocrat who believes the brutal street slaying of his wife, Olivia, to be something other than random violence, Spenser immediately senses Tripp's picture-perfect version of his family's life is false. For starters, the victim's reputation is far too saintly, while her house is as lived-in as a stage set and her troubled children don't appear the product of a happy home. Spenser plunges into a world of grand illusion, peopled by cardboard cutouts, including: a distinguished public servant with plenty to hide; a wealthy executive whose checks bounce; a sleepy southern town seething with scandal; and the ambiguous Olivia herself. Consummately mysterious and smokily sensual, Paper Doll is Parker and Spenser at their compelling best.

21. Walking Shadow (1994)
    With an unbroken string of bestselling suspense novels behind him, Robert B. Parker is nothing if not world-class. Now, after the success of Paper Doll, applauded by The Boston Globe as "one of the best Spensers in a decade," Parker returns with his two-fisted sleuth in Walking Shadow -- a twisty, ambitious whodunit, which finds them both breaking new ground. A Massachusetts waterfront town. A small repertory theater with a big reputation. A soupcon of scandal. And Spenser is on hand to steal the scene. Hired by the Port City Theater Company's board of trustees to investigate the director's claim that he is being followed, Spenser feels like a fish out of water - until an actor is gunned down during a performance of a politically controversial play. Then Boston's premier private cop and his cohort, Hawk, go into action, plunging straight into a maze of motives that constitutes a master class in the difficulty of judging reality from appearances. Spenser soon discovers that solving the actor's murder is only a piece of the puzzle. From covert carnal connections within the community to municipal corruption with international tentacles; from petty troublemakers to major malefactors for whom murder is merely a day at the office - this case has everything it takes to stump the sharpest of Sherlocks. And nobody loves a challenge more than Spenser. Heady and sardonic, with an unpredictable cast of lovers, liars, killers, and clowns, Walking Shadow entertains even as it ponders the instability of identities. It is a thoroughly engrossing performance by a classic talent.

22. Thin Air (1995)
    When a Boston police detective's adored young bride, Lisa St. Claire, disappears without a trace, he enlists Spenser's help in tracking her down. Sleuthing from a New England college campus to the slick sports clubs of L.A., Spenser discovers all about Lisa - including her past history of prostitution, substance abuse, and self-destructive love affairs - and suspects she is being held prisoner by her sociopathic Latino ex-lover in his crumbling tenement fortress deep within the barrio of a burned-out Massachusetts mill town. Accompanied by a Chicano shooter with an ironclad attitude and an unflinching sense of honor, Spenser sets in motion a complex plan to rescue Lisa. As he wheels and deals with boozy, broken cops and messianic local warlords, he is forced to face some brutal truths and question the very meaning of passion, manhood, and justice.

23. Chance (1996)
    Once again, Robert B. Parker makes artfulness look easy, with Chance, his sensational new thriller. This time Spenser -- the tough-but-tender sleuth whose passion for justice repeatedly plunges him into a sea of trouble -- hires out on a marital matter whose attached strings entangle him with the Mob. When big-time Boston hoodlum Julius Ventura approaches Spenser and his redoubtable sidekick, Hawk, about locating his only daughter's missing husband, it's clear he's not telling them the whole truth about the blushing bride and the ardent groom. In fact, he may be lying. But something about these missing links appeals to Spenser, and he agrees to take the case. So begins an odyssey into the netherworld of disorganized crime: from the throne rooms of crime lords to the Vegas strip; from two-bit wiseguys with a genius for dangerous liaisons to gangsters' molls in jeopardy; from larceny to homicide. And that's just for openers. All too soon, it becomes clear that what's at stake is not young love, but control of gangland Boston. Spenser and Hawk find themselves dead-center in a circus of violence whose shadowy ringmaster is all too familiar to a private eye with a past.

24. Small Vices (1997)
    Ellis Alves is no angel. But his lawyer says he was framed for the murder of college student Melissa Henderson . . . and asks Spenser for help.
    
    From Boston's back streets to Manhattan's elite, Spenser and Hawk search for suspects, including Melissa's rich-kid, tennis-star boyfriend. But when a man with a .22 puts Spenser in a coma, the hope for justice may die with him . . .

25. Sudden Mischief  (1998)
    Spenser's back. And Susan's ex is quaking in his boots . . .
    
    Susan Silverman's ex doesn't call himself "Silverman" anymore -- he's changed his name to "Sterling." And that's not the only thing that's phony about him. A do-gooding charity fundraiser, he's been accused of sexual harassment by no less than four different women. And not long after Spenser starts investigating, Sterling is wanted for a bigger charge: murder . . .

26. Hush Money (1999)
    Spenser has his hands full when he takes on two cases at once. In the first, a high-minded university might be hiding a killer within a swamp of political correctness. And in the other, Spenser comes to the aid of a stalking victim, only to find himself the unwilling object of the woman's dangerous affection.

27. Hugger Mugger (2000)
    Someone's making death threats in Dixie -- against a thoroughbred horse destined to be the next Secretariat. At the owner's request, Boston P.I. Spenser hoofs it down South -- where the lies are buzzing . . . and the dying is easy.

28. Potshot (2001)
    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, called in to put the group out of business and establish a police force who can protect the town. Calling on his own cadre of cohorts, including Vinnie Morris, Bobby Horse, Chollo Bernard J. Fortunato, as well as the redoubtable Hawk, Spenser must find a way to beat the gang at their own dangerous game.

29. Widow's Walk (2002)
    When fifty-one-year-old Nathan Smith, a once-confirmed bachelor, is found in his bed with a hole in his head made by a .38-caliber slug, it's hard not to imagine Nathan's young bride as the one with her finger on the trigger. Even her lawyer thinks she's guilty. But given that Mary Smith is entitled to the best defense she can afford-and thanks to Nathan's millions, she can afford plenty-Spenser hires on to investigate Mary's bona fides. Mary's alibi is a bit on the flimsy side: She claims she was watching television in the other room when the murder occurred. But the couple was seen fighting at a high-profile cocktail party earlier that evening, and the prosecution has a witness who says Mary once tried to hire him to kill Nathan. What's more, she's too pretty, too made-up, too blonde, and sleeps around -- just the kind of person a jury loves to hate.
    
    Spenser's up against a wall; leads go nowhere, no one knows a thing. Then a young woman, recently fired from her position at Smith's bank, turns up dead. Mary's vacant past suddenly starts looking meaner and darker-and Spenser's suddenly got to watch his back.
    
    With lean, crackling dialogue, crisp action, and razor-sharp characters, Widow's Walk is another triumph.

30. Back Story (2003)
    In 1974, a revolutionary group calling itself The Dread Scott Brigade held up the Old Shawmut Bank in Boston's Audubon Circle. Money was stolen. And a woman named Emily Gordon, a visitor in town cashing traveler's checks, was shot and killed. No one saw who shot her. Despite security-camera photos and a letter from the group claiming responsibility, the perpetrators have remained at large for nearly three decades.
    
    Enter Paul Giacomin, the closest thing to a son Spenser has. Twice before, Spenser's come to the young man's assistance; and now Paul is thirty-seven, his troubled past behind him. When Paul's friend Daryl Gordon -- daughter of the long-gone Emily -- decides she needs closure regarding her mother's death, it's Spenser she turns to. The lack of clues and a missing FBI intelligence report force Spenser to reach out in every direction-to Daryl's estranged, hippie father, to Vinnie Morris and the mob, to the mysterious Ives-testing his resourcefulness and his courage.
    
    Taut, tense, and expertly crafted, this is Robert B. Parker at his storytelling best.

31. Cold Service (2005)
    When Spenser's closest ally, Hawk, is brutally injured and left for dead while protecting bookie Luther Gillespie, Spenser embarks on an epic journey to rehabilitate his friend in body and soul. Hawk, always proud, has never been dependent on anyone. Now he is forced to make connections: to accept the medical technology that will ensure his physical recovery, and to reinforce the tenuous emotional ties he has to those around him.
    
    Spenser quickly learns that the Ukrainian mob is responsible for the hit, but finding a way into their tightly knit circle is not nearly so simple. Their total control of the town of Marshport, from the bodegas to the police force to the mayor's office, isn't just a sign of rampant corruption-it's a form of arrogance that only serves to ignite Hawk's desire to get even. As the body count rises, Spenser is forced to employ some questionable techniques and even more questionable hired guns while redefining his friendship with Hawk in the name of vengeance.

32. School Days (2005)
    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. Jared's parents are resigned to his fate, and the boy himself doesn't seem to care whether he goes to prison for a crime he might not have committed.

33. Hundred-Dollar Baby (2006)
    A client from a decades-old case reaches out to Boston PI Spenser -- but can he rescue troubled April Kyle once more?
    
    Longtime Spenser fans will remember that once upon a time, though not so long ago, there was a girl named April Kyle -- a beautiful teenage runaway who turned to prostitution to escape her terrible family life. The book was 1982's Ceremony, and, thanks to Spenser, April escaped Boston's "Combat Zone" for the relative safety of a high-class New York City bordello. April resurfaced in Taming a Sea-Horse, again in dire need of Spenser's rescue-this time from the clutches of a controlling lover. But April Kyle's return in Hundred-Dollar Baby is nothing short of shocking.
    
    When a mature, beautiful, and composed April strides into Spenser's office, the Boston PI barely hesitates before recognizing his once and future client. Now a well-established madam herself, April oversees an upscale call-girl operation in Boston's Back Bay. Still looking for Spenser's approval, it takes her a moment before she can ask him, again, for his assistance. Her business is a success; what's more, it's an all-female enterprise. Now that some men are trying to take it away from her, she needs Spenser.
    
    April claims to be in the dark about who it is that's trying to shake her down, but with a bit of legwork and a bit more muscle, Spenser and Hawk find ties to organized crime and local kingpin Tony Marcus, as well as a scheme to franchise the operation across the country. As Spenser again plays the gallant knight, it becomes clear that April's not as innocent as she seems. In fact, she may be her own worst enemy.

34. Now and Then (2007)
    When a simple case turns into a treacherous and politically charged investigation, Spenser faces his most difficult challenge yet-keeping his cool while his beloved Susan Silverman is in danger.
    
    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.
    
    Not surprisingly, Spenser catches Jordan with another man, tells Dennis what he's found out, and considers the case closed. But a couple of days later, all hell breaks loose, and three people are dead. This isn't just a marital affair gone bad. Spenser is in the middle of hornet's nest of trouble, and he's got to get out of it without getting stung. With Hawk watching his back, and gun-for-hire Vinnie Morris providing extra cover, Spenser delves into a complicated and far-reaching operation: Jordan's former lover, Perry Alderson, is the leader of a group that helps sponsor terrorists. But Perry doesn't like Spenser poking around his business, so he decides to get to Spenser through Susan. The Boston P.I. will use all his connections both above and below the law to uncover the truth behind Perry's antigovernment organization. But what Alderson doesn't realize is that Spenser will stop at absolutely nothing to keep Susan out of harm's way; nothing will keep him from the woman he loves.

35. Rough Weather (2008)
    A hurricane hinders a kidnapping and Spenser goes on a search for the man responsible— the infamous Gray Man, who has both helped and hunted Spenser in the past.
    
    Heidi Bradshaw is wealthy, beautiful, and well connected —and she needs Spenser’s help. In a most unlikely request, Heidi, a notorious gold digger recently separated from her latest husband, recruits the Boston P.I. to accompany her to her private island, Tashtego. The reason? To attend her daughter’s wedding as a sort of stand-in husband and protector. Spenser consents, but only after it is established that his beloved Susan Silverman will also be in attendance.
    
    It should be a straightforward job for Spenser: show up for appearances, have some drinks, and spend some quality time with Susan. But when Spenser’s old nemesis Rugar—the Gray Man—arrives, Spenser realizes that something is amiss. A storm, a kidnapping, and murder tear apart what should be a joyous occasion, and Rugar is seemingly at the center of it all. The only thing is that the sloppy kidnapping is not Rugar’s style—as Spenser knows from past encounters. With six dead bodies and more questions than he can process, Spenser begins a search for answers—and the Gray Man.

36. Chasing the Bear: A Young Spenser Novel (2009)
    See how it all began for one of literature’s most famous P.I.s—Spenser!
    
    For almost forty years, Robert B. ParkerÂ’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 SpenserÂ’s formative years spent with is 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.

37. The Professional (2009)
    Boston P.I. Spenser returns in a flawless addition to New York Times–bestselling author Robert B. Parker’s flagship series.
    
    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 money. Shaw hires Spenser to make Eisenhower “cease and desist,” so to speak, but when women start turning up dead, Spenser’s assignment goes from blackmail to murder.
    
    As matters become more complicated, Spenser’s longtime love, Susan, begins offering some input by analyzing Eisenhower’s behavior patterns in hopes of opening up a new avenue of investigation. It seems that not all of Gary’s women are rich. So if he’s not using them for blackmail, then what is his purpose? Spenser switches tactics to focus on the husbands, only to find that innocence and guilt may be two sides of the same coin.

Jesse Stone Novels

1. Night Passage (1997)
   The author of two dozen Spenser novels as well as numerous other works of fiction, Robert B. Parker is no stranger to either critical or popular acclaim. With his hallmark sharp wit and taut action, Parker has created in the Spenser series the standard against which all contemporary detective novels are measured, and a character considered the paragon of private eyes. In Night Passage, Parker sets the bar even higher, with the introduction of Jesse Stone, a hero cut from different cloth.
   
   After a busted marriage kicks his drinking problem into overdrive and the LAPD unceremoniously dumps him, the thirty-five-year-old 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 that pass in the night. He finds he must test his mettle and powers of command to emerge a local hero -- or the deadest of dupes.
   
   As the flagship volume in a new series featuring a complex and engaging sleuth, Night Passage is cause for celebration.

2. Trouble in Paradise (1998)
   Robert B. Parker and his legendary Spenser series have long been considered the one plus ultra of detective fiction. But the critics' praise for Jesse Stone's debut in Night Passage proved there was room for 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 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.
   
   sAs 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

3. Death in Paradise (2001)
   The Paradise Men's Softball League has wrapped up another game, and Jesse Stone is lingering in the parking lot with his teammates, drinking beer, swapping stories of double plays and beautiful women in the late-summer twilight. But then a frightened voice calls out to him from the edge of a nearby lake. There, two men squat at the water's edge. In front of them, facedown, was something that used to be a girl.
   
   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.

4. Stone Cold (2003)
   Paradise, Massachusetts, police chief Jesse Stone returns, tracking the path of a pair of thrill killers.
   
   Investigating a serial killer in an affluent suburban town is difficult, and dangerous, and with the added pressures from the town selectmen and the media, the heat is turned up on Jesse. 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.

5. Sea Change (2006)
   Paradise, Massachusetts, police chief Jesse Stone faces the case of his career in the newest novel in the bestselling series.
   
   When a woman's partially decomposed body washes ashore in Paradise, Massachusetts, police chief Jesse Stone is forced into a case far more difficult than it initially appears. Identifying the woman is just the first step in what proves to be an emotionally charged investigation. Florence Horvath was an attractive, recently divorced heiress from Florida; she also had a penchant for steamy sex and was an enthusiastic participant in a video depicting the same. Somehow the combination of her past and present got her killed, but no one is talking-not the crew of the Lady Jane, the Fort Lauderdale yacht moored in Paradise Harbor; not her very blond, very tan twin sisters, Corliss and Claudia; and not her curiously affectless parents, living out a sterile retirement in a Miami high rise. But someone -- Jesse -- has to speak for the dead, even if it puts him in harm's way.

6. High Profile (2007)
   The murder of a notorious public figure places Paradise, Massachusetts, police chief Jesse Stone in the harsh glare of the media spotlight.
   
   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, forcing him to deal with small-minded local officials and national media scrutiny. When another dead body -- that of a young woman -- is discovered just a few 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. But what may be the most disturbing aspect of these murders is the fact that no one seems to care -- not a single one of Weeks's ex-wives, not the family of the girl. And when the medical examiner reveals a heartbreaking link between the two departed souls, the mystery only deepens.
   
   sDespite Weeks's reputation and the girl's tender age, Jesse is hard-pressed to find legitimate suspects. Though the crimes are perhaps the most gruesome Jesse has ever witnessed, it is the malevolence behind them that makes them all the more frightening. Forced to delve into a world of stormy relationships, Jesse soon comes to realize that knowing whom he can trust is indeed a matter of life and death.

7. Stranger In Paradise (2008)

8. Night and Day (2009)

9. Split Image (2009)

Sunny Randall Novels
(Note:  Detective fans know that Boston, Private Eye Sunny Randall is the daughter of Robert B. Parker's character Spencer's!  Diehard fans also know that Parker created his Sunny Randall series expressly for good friend Helen Hunt, with an eye toward the actress playing the petite blonde investigator on the silver screen!)

1. Family Honor (1999)

2. Perish Twice (2000)
   Sunny is hired as a bodyguard to protect a best-selling author from a stalker -- her psychotherapist ex-husband.

3. Shrink Rap (2002)
   The private investigator Sunny Randall is hired as a bodyguard to protect a best-selling author from a stalker -- her psychotherapist ex-husband.

4. Melancholy Baby (2004)

5. Blue Screen (2006)

6. Spare Change (2007)

• See also Spenser's Boston (1994) with Kasho Kumagai (Photographer)

Raymond Chandler

1. Poodle Springs (1990)
   "Philip Marlowe marries a rich, beautiful society lady who wants him to settle down. But old habits die hard, and Marlowe soon is back in business, enmeshed in a case involving pornography, bigamy, and murder." (Ingram)

2. Perchance to Dream (1991)
   In a sequel to Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, Marlowe takes on a case involving General Sternwood, who is six feet under, Vivian, who is dating a blackmailer, and Carmen, a sanitorium escapee. Reprint. K.

Virgil Cole/Everett Hitch Western Novels

1. Appaloosa (2005)

2. Resolution (2008)

3. Brimstone (2009)

Other Fiction

• Wilderness (1980)

• Love and Glory (1980)

• Surrogate (1982)

• Three Weeks in Spring (1982) with Joan H. Parker

• All Our Yesterdays (1994)

• Gunman's Rhapsody (2001)

• Double Play (2004)

• Edenville Owls (2007)

• The Boxer and the Spy (2008)s

Non-Fiction

• The Private Eye in Hammett and Chandler  (1984)

• Parker on Writing (1985)

• Raymond Chandler's Unknown Thriller: The Screenplay of Playback (1986) with Raymond Chandler

• A Year At The Races (1990) with Joan H. Parker, William Strode (Photographer)

• Sport's Illustrated Training With Weights:  The Athlete's Free-Weight Guide (1990)

• Boston: History in the Making (1999)

See also:

• The Robert B. Parker Companion (2005) by Dean James and Elizabeth Foxwell
  Finally, here is the complete guide to Robert B. Parker's novels from Spenser to Jesse Stone to Sunny Randall, plot summaries, cast of characters, Boston locations and maps, and more.

  Even before he was named Grand Master for Lifetime Achievement by the Mystery Writers of America, Edgar® Award-winning Robert B. Parker had assumed the mantle of dean of American crime fiction. "Taking his place beside Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Ross MacDonald" (Boston Globe), he transcended the crime genre. As one of the most prolific writers in the world, he reinvented crime writing.