Spenser earned his degree in the school of hard knocks, so he's ready when a Boston university hires him to recover a stolen rare manuscript. 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 has to tackle some very heavy homework to avoid ending up marked "D" - for dead.

Spenser is a wisecracking former boxer turned private investigator and he is just settling into his new office when enters Harv Shepard, a beleaguered businessman who is looking for someone to help locate his runaway wife. So begins Promised Land, the fourth novel by Robert Parker, that follows the exploits of his cerebral but tough character, detective Spenser. Why Harv Shepard's wife abandoned her family and exactly where she has gone comprise only...

Private investigator Spenser searches for the kidnappers of a lesbian writer who hired him as her bodyguard.

TV reporter Candy Sloan has eyes the color of cornflowers and legs that stretch all the way to heaven. She also has somebody threatening to rearrange her lovely face if she keeps on snooping into charges of Hollywood racketeering. Spenser's job is to keep Candy healthy until she breaks the biggest story of her career. But her star witness has just bowed out with three bullets in his chest, two tough guys have doubled up to test Spenser's skill with...

A boy was gone, the victim of a kidnapping or his parents' indifference, Spenser couldn't tell. Either way, Spenser had been hired to find him, and now that meant going up against a sexual predator masquerading as a hero. But into this ugly case came a beautiful woman named Susan Silverman, who wanted to save a child, and maybe a detective too . . .

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. So 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.

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.

A killer leaves a red rose on the body of each woman he kills. When Susan Silverman's life is in danger, Spencer vows to bring the criminal to justice.

Spenser's never had a client like Jill Joyce, the star of TV's Fifty Minutes. She's beautiful, bitchy, sexy--and someone is stalking her. Spenser can hardly blame the would-be assassin...until he means the true meaning of "stage fright."

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?