Pale Kings and Princes
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
“Ebullient entertainment.”—Time
A hotshot reporter is dead. He'd gone to take a look-see at “Miami North”—little Wheaton, Massachusetts—the biggest cocaine distribution center above the Mason-Dixon line.
Did the kid die for getting too close to the truth . . . or to a sweet lady with a jealous husband?
Spenser will stop at nothing to find out.
Praise for Robert B. Parker's Spenser novels
“Like Philip Marlowe, Spenser is a man of honor in a dishonorable world. When he says he will do something, it is done. The dialogues zings, and there is plenty of action . . . but it is the moral element that sets them above most detective fiction.”—Newsweek
“Crackling dialogue, plenty of action and expert writing . . . Unexpectedly literate—[Spenser is] in many respects the very exemplar of the species.”—The New York Times
“They just don’t make private eyes tougher or funnier.”—People
“Parker has a recorder’s ear for dialogue, an agile wit . . . and, strangely enough, a soupçon of compassion hidden under that sardonic, flip exterior.”—Los Angeles Times
“A deft storyteller, a master of pace.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Spenser probably had more to do with changing the private eye from a coffin-chaser to a full-bodied human being than any other detective hero.”—The Chicago Sun-Times
“[Spenser is] tough, intelligent, wisecracking, principled, and brave.”—The New Yorker
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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 Spenser to Wheaton, Mass., where Valdez was investigating a Colombian cocaine operation. After a meeting with the police chief, Bailey Rogers, the detective is waylaid by thugs whom he beats handily. Spenser confirms his suspicions that a grocery wholesaler, Felipe Esteva, is dealing the drug and paying off the police. The next murder victim, however, is Rogers, whose young son drives a truck for Esteva. Spenser daringly hijacks a fortune in cocaine and offers to sell it to Esteva, as dangerous a ploy as the macho detective has ever attempted. When his only ally, a state trooper, is "reassigned,'' Spenser brings his lover Susan to help with psychological warfare and his sidekick Hawk to face Esteva's mob. Parker keeps the reader's adrenalin pumping overtime until Spenser and company claim the victory. Mystery Guild dual main selection; Literary Guild/Doubleday Book Club alternate.