Robert B. Parker, Author Putnam $23.95 (307p) ISBN 978-0-399-14587-2
Despite frequent appearances by Susan Silverman (longtime love of Boston PI Spenser) and the absence of Hawk (his enigmatic sidekick), the latest entry in Parker's estimable series is a worthy one. Missing is the sap that can stickie-up scenes...
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The Spenser series remains fresh after 28 novels in about 30 years. How does Parker do it? Through recurring characters as alive as any in fiction, and through exceptionally clean, graceful prose that links the novels as surely as do the characters.
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $26.95 (289p) ISBN 978-0-399-15594-9
Bestseller Parker makes producing snappy banter look easy in his 37th Spenser novel (after Rough Weather
). He also manages to draw new readers into the Boston PI's major personal relationships—with love interest Susan Silverman and...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $25.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-399-15623-6
Bestseller Parker's enjoyable ninth novel featuring Paradise, Mass., police chief Jesse Stone (after Night and Day
), focuses on Stone's deepening connection with PI Sunny Randall, the star of her own series (Spare Change
, etc.). Both...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $25.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-399-15648-9
This excellent posthumous western from bestseller Parker (1932–2010) continues the saga of gun-slinging saddle pals Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch (after Brimstone
) as they trade wisecracks and hot lead with back-shooting owlhoots and...
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Robert B. Parker, Author Putnam $19.95 (223p) ISBN 978-0-399-13628-3
A bold but surprisingly uncomplex plot distinguishes Spenser's latest adventure as the Boston PI searches for the mother of Paul Giacomin, the young man saved by the burly sleuth 10 years earlier in Early Autumn. Spenser, now ``middle class and...
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Robert B. Parker, Author Putnam $19.95 (224p) ISBN 978-0-399-13721-1
In Parker's ( Pastime ) 23rd Spenser novel, our hero finds himself, at the behest of his pal Hawk, defending the residents of a gang-terrorized Boston housing project known as Double Deuce. The drive-by shooting of a teenage mother and her child...
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Robert B. Parker, Author Putnam $19.95 (270p) ISBN 978-0-399-13920-8
In fine form here, Parker's sardonic Boston PI Spenser, last seen in Paper Dolls , encounters danger, venality and plenty of comic material in this brisk tale spanning the worlds of experimental theater and illegal immigration. While he'd rather be...
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Robert B. Parker, Author Putnam $21.95 (293p) ISBN 978-0-399-14020-4
In the famed Boston PI's 22nd case, an oddly sympathetic villain and a resolute heroine draw Spenser into a barrio enclave in a depressed Massachusetts factory town. Readers know that Lisa St. Clair, a radio deejay newly married to a Boston police...
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Robert B. Parker, Author Putnam $21.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-399-14134-8
Organized crime in Parker's fictional Boston has provided protein-rich fodder for most of the Spenser novels (recently, Thin Air and Walking Shadow). Parker sticks to the tried and true here, as his burly and literate PI untangles the knotted power...
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Robert B. Parker, Author Putnam $21.95 (308p) ISBN 978-0-399-14244-4
Spenser returns in top form (his 24th adventure, following Chance) to clear a man wrongly imprisoned for murdering a woman college student. Ellis Alves, a black man with sexual assaults on his record, was convicted easily when two witnesses said...
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Robert B. Parker, Author Putnam $21.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-399-14304-5
Great series characters can wind up tyrannizing their creators, who often seek relief in secondary series heroes. But Professor Challenger didn't save Conan Doyle from Holmes, Tiger Mann never put the kibosh on Spillane's Mike Hammer--and Jessie...
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Robert B. Parker, Author Putnam $22.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-399-14370-0
The 25th Spenser novel isn't a romance, but it's all about love. In early springtime, Susan Silverman, the elegant psychologist and lover who long ago softened the heart of Boston's preeminent thug-sized PI, asks Spenser to investigate the sexual...
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Robert B. Parker, Author Penguin USA $22.95 (324p) ISBN 978-0-399-14433-2
Tough and tight, Parker's second Jesse Stone crime novel (after last year's Night Passage) finds the chief of police of modest Paradise, Mass., battling a ruthless gang of thieves even as he jousts with personal demons. Two parallel plotlines tell...
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Robert B. Parker, Author Putnam $22.95 (309p) ISBN 978-0-399-14458-5
Despite his quarter century on Boston's mean streets (he debuted in The Godwulf Manuscript in 1974), Parker's retrograde yet hip PI Spenser can still punch, sleuth and wisecrack with the best of them. This time out, Spenser looks into the case of...
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Robert B. Parker, Author Putnam $22.95 (322p) ISBN 978-0-399-14566-7
After 33 novels--including more than two dozen Spenser mysteries--backboned by heros concerned with distinctly male codes of behavior, Parker presents his first female protagonist. She's Sunny Randall, and she's a keeper. In some ways, Sunny is a...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Philomel $17.99 (169p) ISBN 978-0-399-24776-7
Parker introduces young readers to private investigator Spenser, star of his bestselling adult novels, at age 14. Short chapters and Spenser’s signature quick-fire delivery propel the story, which reveals the ways young Spenser uses the...
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Robert B. Parker, Author Putnam $23.95 (293p) ISBN 978-0-399-14668-8
Boston PI Sunny Randle, given her second outing here, is to Parker's veteran PI Spenser as Pepsi is to Coke: a bit lighter and sweeter, but still the real deal. And in the literary equivalent of a blind taste test, you'd be hard pressed to tell them
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Robert B. Parker, Putnam, $26.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-399-15685-4
At the start of the lackluster 38th Spenser novel from late MWA Grand Master Parker, the iconic Boston PI agrees to protect art historian Ashton Prince during the exchange for cash of a rare painting held for ransom, 17th-century Dutch artist Franz...
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Robert B. Parker, Author Berkley Publishing Group $7.99 (272p) ISBN 978-0-425-12001-9
Boston private eye Spenser returns to investigate rumored cheating by Taft University's star basketball team in Parker's 19th novel, reported PW . Although enjoyable as Spenser tales always are, this resembles a long short story rather than a fully...
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Robert B. Parker, Author Berkley $7.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-425-13293-7
Boston sleuth Spenser trails a woman to her gangster boyfriend's hideout in a mystery that spent eight weeks on PW 's bestseller list. (Apr.)
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Robert B. Parker, Author Putnam Adult $18.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-399-13537-8
Parker ( Playmates ) adds another winner to his tried-and-true series with this electrifying story told in the familiar low-voltage style of Spenser, Boston private eye. Spenser's love, psychologist Susan, acting as consultant to a TV film crew...
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Robert B. Parker, Author Delacorte Press $15.95 (250p) ISBN 978-0-385-29461-4
The TV series Spenser: For Hire is adding to the fame of Parker's Boston private eye, star of 12 book thrillers. The witty, tough, idealistic Spenser recounts his latest exploits in this 13th tale, starting when he meets April Kyle again. The young...
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Robert B. Parker, Author Delacorte Press $15.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-385-29538-3
The TV series Spenser: For Hire is based on Parker's bestselling series of mysteries starring a Boston private detective, and this taut thriller will no doubt match its predecessors' success. The murder of newspaper reporter Eric Valdez takes...
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Robert B. Parker, Author Delacorte Press $16.95 (211p) ISBN 978-0-385-29651-9
The hero of Parker's bestsellers and a popular TV series, Boston private eye Spenser tells his 15th story, this time about events that affect him personally as well as his psychologist lover Susan Silverman and their buddy, Hawk. A husband murders...
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Robert B. Parker, Author Putnam Publishing Group $17.95 (222p) ISBN 978-0-399-13425-8
Boston private eye Spenser returns to investigate rumored cheating by Taft University's star basketball team in Parker's 19th novel. The challenges of the case at first seem straightforward: when Bobby Deegan, representing mob gangsters, strongly...
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Robert B. Parker, Author Putnam Publishing Group $19.95 (271p) ISBN 978-0-399-13580-4
Parker, author of the Spenser novels, has made this ``sequel to Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep '' a stunning, drop-dead success. Private eye Philip Marlowe spins a yarn of greed, madness and death with the cool-eyed cynicism (and good-guy core)...
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Robert B. Parker, Author Putnam Publishing Group $19.95 (223p) ISBN 978-0-399-13818-8
Spenser fans will delight in the Boston PI's latest adventure, after Pastime and Double Deuce , as Parker, restraining a penchant for arch characterization, returns his attention to plotting. Spenser is hired by Boston Brahmin Loudon Tripp to find...
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Robert B. Parker, Author Delacorte Press $22.95 (401p) ISBN 978-0-385-30437-5
Spenser doesn't appear in this overwrought, Boston-set saga of three generations of Irish-American cops, but the spirit of Parker's popular PI dominates these pages nonetheless, with each cop in turn obsessed with courage, codes of behavior and,...
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Robert B. Parker. Putnam, $26.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-399-15726-4
An intriguing new supporting character and the usual entertaining dialogue lift the 39th and, sadly, last Spenser novel (after Painted Ladies) from MWA Grand Master Parker (1932–2010). When 20-year-old Dawn Lopata expires of apparent asphyxiation...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $24.95 (295p) ISBN 978-0-399-15323-5
Any new installment in Parker's long-running series starring tough, wisecracking Boston PI Spenser is a pleasure, and this time out high-maintenance girlfriend Susan Silverman is out of town, giving readers unfettered Spenser face time. The...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $22.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-399-14762-3
The gunman is Wyatt Earp. The rhapsody plays out in a rare Parker stand-alone novel, his best yet and his first western. Told in prose as cool and spare as Parker has ever laid down, the book details the time Wyatt and his brothers spend in...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $23.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-399-14779-1
Melancholy shadows this third, beautifully wrought Jesse Stone mystery; rarely if ever has Parker's fiction conveyed with such solemn intensity the challenge of living a good life in a world of sin. Jesse, erstwhile drunk and now sheriff of...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-399-14845-3
Last year Parker published three strong novels including the excellent Spenser mystery Potshot. So he's entitled to a miss and a pass and gets one with this forgettable Spenser entry. Attorney Rita Fiore, who's worked with the Boston PI...
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Robert B. Parker, Author , read by Joe Mantegna. Random House Audio $25.95 (, unabridged, four cassettes, 6 hrs., $25.95 ISBN ) ISBN 978-0-553-52903-6
This unadorned production leaves everything to the considerable narrative skill of veteran reader and actor Mantegna (Godfather III; Searching for Bobby Fisher; etc.), but not even he can breathe much life into an off effort from Parker (Potshot;...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-399-14930-6
As if responding to his new status as an MWA Grand Master, Parker turns in his strongest mystery in years with Boston PI Sunny Randall's third outing (after Family Honor
and Perish Twice), a particular relief after this spring's flaccid...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $24.95 (291p) ISBN 978-0-399-14977-1
Spenser's respectable 30th outing (he debuted 30 years ago in The Godwulf Manuscript) finds the veteran Boston PI teaming briefly with Jesse Stone, the cop hero of a newer Parker series (Death in Paradise, etc.). The move works because Parker...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $24.95 (336p) ISBN 978-0-399-15087-6
It's taken four novels, but finally Parker's Jesse Stone series has produced a book as good as top-drawer Spenser. This outing finds the laconic, troubled cop tackling three problems: to capture the pair of serial killers who are murdering...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-399-15145-3
Spenser #31 finds the veteran Boston PI tackling corporate crime in a routine yet absorbing outing. As usual, Spenser enters the case at an angle, this time because he's hired by one Marlene Rowley to prove that her husband Trent, CFO of energy...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $24.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-399-15188-0
Set in 1947, Parker's superb new novel imagines what it was like for Jackie Robinson, and more centrally for Robinson's (fictional) bodyguard, to see the color barrier broken in Major League baseball.
This isn't Parker's first foray...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $24.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-399-15218-4
The title refers to two characters: Boston college student Sarah Markham, convinced that her parents adopted her, and Boston PI Sunny Randall, hired by Sarah to certify her parentage. Sarah is melancholy because her parents refuse to take a DNA test
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-399-15240-5
Parker/Spenser fans will remember Small Vices
(1997), wherein the Boston PI was shot nearly dead and his sidekick Hawk nursed him back to health. This strong new Spenser novel flips that scenario, with Hawk shot and Spenser helping him first to get
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $24.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-399-15277-1
A starred review indicates a book of outstanding quality. A review with a blue-tinted title indicates a book of unusual commercial interest that hasn't received a starred review.
APPALOOSA
Robert B. Parker
. Putnam
, $24.95 (320p) ISBN 0-399-152
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Robert B. Parker, Author , read by Joe Mantegna. Random House Audio $29.95 (
,
unabridged, five CDs, 6 hrs., $29.95 ISBN) ISBN 978-0-7393-1859-1
,
unabridged, five CDs, 6 hrs., $29.95 ISBN) ISBN 978-0-7393-1859-1
The newest entry in Parker's long-running Spenser series finds the detective's brother-in-arms, Hawk, struggling back to physical and soulful health after being shot. The novel, which chronicles his and Spenser's attempts to hunt down...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $25.95 (293p) ISBN 978-0-399-15571-0
Parker's gunslinging saddle pals Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch return for their third adventure, in which the two lawmen-for-hire exchange snappy dialogue and hot lead with assorted owlhoots, deadbeats and unwashed baddies in south Texas. Here,...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $24.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-399-15267-2
Filled with tawdry sexual shenanigans, bestseller Parker's fifth Jesse Stone novel (after 2003's Stone Cold
) finds the former L.A. cop, now the police chief of Paradise, Mass., tentatively reunited with his ex-wife, Jenn, and approaching a...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $24.95 (306p) ISBN 978-0-399-15351-8
Bestseller Parker's two non-Spenser leads, Boston PI Sunny Randall, and Paradise, Mass., police chief Jesse Stone, join forces in this breezy, fast-paced whodunit. Buddy Bollen, a sleazy Hollywood producer, hires Sunny to protect his girlfriend,
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $25.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-399-15541-3
In bestseller Parker's fluffy eighth Jesse Stone novel (after Stranger in Paradise
), the Paradise, Mass., police chief almost effortlessly performs his laconic magic to restore order and right wrongs. When Betsy Ingersoll, the junior high...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $26.95 (294p) ISBN 978-0-399-15519-2
Spenser, the redoubtable Boston PI, struts his stuff in this 36th entry in the series, but may leave some readers wondering if his ethics will bear even casual examination. When Heidi Bradshaw hires Spenser to “support” her at her...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $25.95 (292p) ISBN 978-0-399-15504-8
Parker applies his customary vigor to this sequel to Appaloosa
(2005), in a sparse, bullet-riddled rumination on law and order, friendship and honor. Narrator and hired gun Everitt Hitch takes a job as lookout in Amos Wolfson's Blackfoot...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $25.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-399-15460-7
Jesse Stone trades quips with his deputies, Suitcase Simpson and Molly Crane; struggles with his relationship with his ex-wife, Jenn; and grapples with a criminal's return in bestseller Parker's sizzling seventh novel to feature the...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $25.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-399-15441-6
When a client who suspects his wife is cheating on him is murdered in Parker's 35th snappy Spenser adventure (after Hundred-Dollar Baby
), the Boston PI takes it personally, not only because the case resonates with Spenser's past history...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Philomel/Sleuth $17.99 (194p) ISBN 978-0-399-24656-2
Parker, the bestselling author of detective novels for adults, brings a healthy dose of noir to his first outing for children, set in the years following the end of WWII. Narrating is Bobby Murphy, an eighth-grader at Center Junior High in a town...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $24.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-399-15425-6
At the start of Parker's engaging sixth Sunny Randall novel (after Blue Screen
), the cop-turned-PI helps her father track down a Boston serial killer whose depredations begin again after a 20-year hiatus. The "spare change" killer...
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $24.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-399-15404-1
The murder of Walton Weeks, a Rush Limbaugh–like 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&#
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Robert B. Parker, Author . Putnam $24.95 (291p) ISBN 978-0-399-15376-1
April Kyle, the damsel in distress that Spenser rescued in two earlier books, Ceremony
(1982) and Taming a Sea Horse
(1986), again turns to the iconic Boston PI for help in the 34th entry in Parker's popular series. Cynical yet romantic,...
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Robert B. Parker, Author, James Naughton, Read by , read by James Naughton. Random House Audio $29.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-7393-4001-1
Even if Parker's series about smalltown Massachusetts police chief Jesse Stone doesn't rank as most fans' favorite dish in the bestselling author's deli, listeners should enjoy James Naughton's clean and crisp way of...
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Robert B. Parker, Author, Scott Sowers, Read by , read by Scott Sowers. Random House Audio $29.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-7393-1868-3
A storm of media attention rains down on the small town of Paradise, Mass., and local police chief Jesse Stone when a famous national talk show host is shot and left hanging from a tree. To add to his troubles, Stone’s ex-wife, Jennifer, is...
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Robert B. Parker, Author, Scott Sowers, Read by , read by Scott Sowers. Random House Audio $29.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-7393-2457-8
Former LAPD cop and recovering alcoholic Jesse Stone is now the police chief of Paradise, Mass., a small suburb of Boston. It's quiet most of the time, except for the annual Race Week yachting event, and when murdered bodies wash up on shore....
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Robert B. Parker, Author, Joe Mantegna, Read by Random House Audio $29.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-7393-3995-4
If ever there was an argument for selective abridgment, this audio version of Parker's latest Spenser outing is the poster child for it. Spenser, Susan and everyone else uses ""I said"" or ""she said"" so often that it soon becomes laughable. It's...
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Robert B. Parker, Author, Kate Burton, Read by , read by Kate Burton. Random House Audio $29.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-7393-1871-3
Not all of Sunny Randall's cases have been personal, but this one, her sixth, raises the average. Her on-again, off-again romance with her ex-husband is on again in a big way. And she's working an investigation with her father, Phil, an ec-
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Robert B. Parker, Author, Kate Burton, Read by , read by Kate Burton. Random House Audio $29.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-7393-2460-8
Parker's latest mystery brings two of his series characters, Boston PI Sunny Randall and Paradise, Mass., chief of police Jesse Stone together for the first time. Zillionaire Buddy Bollen hires Randall as bodyguard to his live-in girlfriend, the
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Robert B. Parker, Author, Ed Begley, Jr., Performed by , read by Ed Begley Jr. New Millennium $25 (0p) ISBN 978-1-59007-081-9
This retelling of the famous rivalry between Wyatt Earp and the cowboys is a minimalist's dream, but it doesn't offer much in the way of innovation. Begley has the kind of folksy, but literate, head-scratching charm—the farm boy who...
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Raymond Chandler, Author, Robert B. Parker, Author Berkley $7.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-425-12343-0
Detective Philip Marlowe's seventh caper takes place in Poodle Springs (read: Palm Springs) and in L.A., where a gambler has been framed for murder. ``Sustaining tensions, writing in tune with the period and delivering a knockout finale, Parker does
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ARTICLES
