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.

Sunny Randall, "Boston's leading lady gumshoe" (New York Daily News), returns as hired bodyguard for the spoiled, and possibly dangerous, prize female client of a sleazy producer. This time, she gets a little help from Parker's popular character Jesse Stone, making a guest appearance here

They were the Sheridan men, ruled by passion, betrayed by love, heirs to a legacy of violence and forbidden desire.  Gus, Boston's top homicide cop: he knew equally well the backroom politics of City Hall and the private passions of the very rich, a man haunted by the wanton courage and perilous obsessions he inherited from his father... Conn, the patriarch, a lawless cop who spawned a circle of vengeance and betrayal that would span half...

When Spenser accepts a job as a "bodyguard" for a beautiful young woman, he gets in way over his head.

When Spenser's closet 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 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...

Brad Sterling - former Harvard football player, ne'er-do-well, and Susan Silverman's long out-of touch ex-husband - is by all appearances a successful businessman. But when, in the course of running a vast fundraiser called Galapalooza, he is charged with sexual harassment, he turns to Susan for help. Though Brad denies the charge, he's desperate, behind in alimony and child support payments to other exes, and in the verge of insolvency. When Spencer,

...

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 surprised that his only clue is a radical student with four bullets in his chest.

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…

Private investigator Spenser leaves Boston for summertime Cape Cod where he and his friend Susan Silverman find themselves involved with fools and villains whose concerns are extortion, robbery, and murder.

Jesse Stone has a problem. Actually, several, with bodies turning up and no clues. 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, Jesse's really feeling the heat.