When prostitute April Kyle goes missing, her boss Patricia Utley, an elegant madam with a practical heart of gold, turns to Spenser – after all, it’s not the first time he’s had to help the troubled teenager . . .
‘A winner’ Chicago Tribune
In this exciting follow-up to Ceremony, April’s left the up-market escort service where she’s worked happily since she was 16 for the love of a male pimp, but her boss is afraid the girl will end up at the destructive end of the prostitution industry. It’s not long before Spenser’s hunt leads him to Robert Rambeaux, ersatz Julliard student and April’s pimp, then to Ginger Bucky, another of Rambeaux’s hookers – who suddenly turns up dead.
‘The suspense never slackens’ Publishers Weekly
With April vanished, Rambeaux hiding out after a near-fatal beating, and his only lead dead, Spenser starts tracking back Ginger’s life, hoping it will eventually lead him to April . . . but the surprises aren’t over yet.
‘When it comes to detective novels, 90 per cent of us admit he’s an influence, and the rest of us lie about it’ HARLEN COBEN
‘A winner’ Chicago Tribune
In this exciting follow-up to Ceremony, April’s left the up-market escort service where she’s worked happily since she was 16 for the love of a male pimp, but her boss is afraid the girl will end up at the destructive end of the prostitution industry. It’s not long before Spenser’s hunt leads him to Robert Rambeaux, ersatz Julliard student and April’s pimp, then to Ginger Bucky, another of Rambeaux’s hookers – who suddenly turns up dead.
‘The suspense never slackens’ Publishers Weekly
With April vanished, Rambeaux hiding out after a near-fatal beating, and his only lead dead, Spenser starts tracking back Ginger’s life, hoping it will eventually lead him to April . . . but the surprises aren’t over yet.
‘When it comes to detective novels, 90 per cent of us admit he’s an influence, and the rest of us lie about it’ HARLEN COBEN
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Reviews
A winner
When it comes to detective novels, 90 per cent of us admit he's an influence, and the rest of us lie about it
The suspense never slackens in the swift, eventful novel until its surprisingly touching close
A winner
Tougher, stronger, better educated, and far more amusing than Sam Spade, Phil Marlowe or Lewis Archer . . . Spenser gives the connoisseur of that rare combination of good detective fiction and good literature a chance to indulge himself
When it comes to detective novels, 90 per cent of us admit he's an influence, and the rest of us lie about it
Spenser is a constant revelation for even long-time Parker fans
One of the great series in the history of the detective story
Reading Parker is like swimming downstream in a river of adrenalin
Robert Parker is still top gun in the tough-guy school of fiction
Spenser gives the tribe of hard-boiled wonders a new vitality and complexity
The sassiest, funniest, most-enjoyable-to-read-about private eye around today . . . the legitimate heir to the Hammett-Chandler-Macdonald tradition
Nobody does it better
Reading a Spenser novel is like a family reunion - it makes one feel good