Boston aristocrat Loudon Tripp hires Spenser to investigate his wife's murder, and Spenser soon uncovers high-class scandals and a corpse that might not be dead after all.

A cadre of powerful Massachusetts politicians offers Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro big money for a small job: find the missing cleaning woman who allegedly stole confidential Statehouse documents. But there's much more to this crime than anyone realizes. What the woman was really after was justice--and out on the Boston streets, the truth can turn stark and ugly.

On the outs with her secretive mob boss lover, Sam Gianelli, Carlotta occupies herself with a seemingly routine case. She feels an immediate bond with her new client, Jessie Franklin. Right now, both women are dealing with issues of trust. For Jessie, it's the man she's soon to marry. Tipped off that he's cheating on her, she wants Carlotta to tail him. No sooner does Carlotta get a track on the likely cad, than Jessie is killed by a hit-and-run driver....

Hawk has been hired by the residents of Double Deuce, a Boston housing project, to help find the killer of a young mother and her infant daughter. As Hawk confronts gang leader Major Johnson, a replica of himself as a teenager, he learns that this was no random killing, but premeditated murder. Spenser, meanwhile, struggles with giving up his independence and moving in with Susan.

Boston private investigator Sunny Randall is forced onto dangerous ground, both physically and emotionally, when she is hired to protect a prominent feminist whose life is being threatened, while her older sister and her best friend both demand her help with their rocky marriages.

It's December in Boston, and Spenser is busy planning the menu for Christmas dinner. He's confronted in his office by a homeless boy named Slide who has found refuge with an organization named Street Business, which gives shelter and seeks job opportunities for the homeless and lost. Slide's mentor, Jackie Alvarez, is being threatened, but it's not a simple case of intimidation; the trail leads to a dangerous drug kingpin, whose hold on the at-risk...

Ten years ago, Spenser helped a teenage girl named Mattie Sullivan find her mother's killer. Now Mattie is a college student with a side job working for the tough but tender private eye. In her first big case, Mattie links the exploitation of dozens of girls to an eccentric billionaire and his sadistic henchwoman. Spenser and trusted ally Hawk must again watch out for Mattie as she unravels a massive sex-trafficking ring that will take them from Boston...