A knock on Spenser's office door can only mean one thing: a new case. This time the visitor is a local lawyer who claims her friends are being blackmailed. Spenser agrees to take the seemingly straightforward case, but when women start turning up dead, Spenser's assignment takes a sinister turn. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

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 friend/ally/bodyguard Hawk-without shoveling on the backstory. Spenser agrees to help a quartet of married women fend off extortion demands from stud Gary Eisenhower, with whom each has had an affair. Meanwhile, the husband of one of the women under blackmail threat hires some thugs to deal with the matter. The action takes its time getting to a dead body, but, as usual, the smooth, entertaining prose more than compensates for any deficiencies of plot. The absence of major personal developments for Spenser or his associates marks this as a less memorable entry than others in this iconic series, but it remains a solid, enjoyable contemporary detective novel. (Oct.) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

The latest (after Rough Weather) in the long-running Spenser series finds the wisecracking Boston PI employed by a bevy of beautiful women to investigate a handsome gigolo with a habit of seducing and blackmailing young wives of wealthy older men. Fists and literary allusions fly, accompanied by psychological commentary courtesy of Spenser's longtime girlfriend, Susan Silverman. Many series regulars make cameos as Spenser unravels the gigolo's blackmail scheme only to uncover other tangled webs of influence and victimization. The dialog crackles, and the plot moves quickly as Spenser discovers once again how sex, greed, and stupidity can disrupt the best laid plans, and how a personal moral code can be quite separate from social conventions or legal authority. Verdict A fast-paced, enjoyable trip through familiar territory for fans of the series. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/09.]-Bradley A. Scott, Brighton Dist. Lib., MI Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Robert Brown Parker was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on September 17, 1932. He received a B.A. from Colby College in 1954, served in the U.S. Army in Korea, and then returned to receive a M. A. in English literature from Boston University in 1957. He received a Ph.D. in English literature from Boston University in 1971.

Before becoming a full-time writer in 1979, he taught at Lowell State College, Bridgewater State College and Northwestern University.

In 1971, Parker published The Godwuff Manuscript, as homage to Raymond Chandler. The character he created, Spencer, became his own detective and was featured in more than thirty novels. His Spencer character has been featured in six TV movies and the television series Spencer: For Hire that starred Robert Urich and ran from 1985 to 1988.

He is also the author of the Jesse Stone series, which has been made into a series of television movies for CBS, and the Sunny Randall series. His novel Appaloosa (2005) was made into a 2008 movie directed by and starring Ed Harris. He has received numerous awards for his work including an Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1977 for The Promised Land, Grand Master Edgar Award for his collective oeuvre in 2002, and the Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. He died of a heart attack on January 18, 2010 at the age of 77.

(Bowker Author Biography) Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.