Robert B. Parker has 63 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 21 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.3★ across 91 ratings. The most-rated is Early Autumn.
Early Autumn
Summary
“[Robert B.] Parker's brilliance is in his simple dialogue, and in Spenser.” (The Philadelphia Inquirer) A bitter divorce is only the beginning. First the father hires thugs to kidnap his son. Then the mother hires Spenser to get the boy back. But as soon as Spenser senses the lay of the land, he decides to do some kidnapping of his own. With a contract out on his life, he heads for the Maine woods, determined to give a puny 15 year old a crash course in survival and to beat his dangerous opponents at their own brutal game.
©1992 Robert B Parker (P)2009 Random House
Chance
Summary
Big-time Boston hoodlum Julius Ventura wants to find his only daughter's missing husband - at least that's how he puts it to Spenser and Hawk, even though its pretty clear that Julius isn't telling the whole truth. Or maybe not any part of the truth. Something about the case appeals to Spenser's passion for justice, and he launches an odyssey that takes the tough-but-tender duo with their penchant for literary allusions into the netherworld of organized crime. From the throne room of crime lords to the Vegas strip, from two-bit wiseguys with a genius for dangerous liasions to gangster's molls in jeopardy, from larceny to homicide, Spenser and Hawk soon discover that what's at stake in this game is not an ardent groom and her blushing bride, but control of gangland Boston. Against the bright lights and seamy side streets of Las Vegas, they find themselves dead center in a circus of violence whose shadowy ringmaster is all too familiar.
©1997 Robert B. Parker (P)2009 Phoenix
Looking for Rachel Wallace
Summary
When Spenser accepts a job as a "bodyguard" for a beautiful young woman, he gets in way over his head.
©1987 Robert B. Parker (P)2009 Random House
Promised Land
Summary
Spenser is good at finding things. But this time he has a client out on Cape Cod who is in over his head. Harvey Shepard has lost his pretty wife - and a very pretty quarter million bucks in real estate. Now a loan shark is putting on the bite. Spenser finds himself doing a slow burn in the Cape Cod sun. The wife has turned up as a hot suspect in a case of murder one...the in-hock hubby has 24 hours before the mob makes him dead...and suddenly Spenser is in so deep that the only way out is so risky it makes dying look like a sure thing.
©1987 Robert B. Parker (P)2009 Random House
A Catskill Eagle
Summary
Spenser's girlfriend Susan goes away with another man, Jerry Costigan, the son of a very rich and dangerous criminal. Spenser and his friend, Hawk, go to find Susan. Soon they are in the world of the CIA, guns and murder.
©1986 Robert B. Parker (P)2009 Random House
Cold Service
Summary
When Spenser's closest ally, Hawk, is brutally injured and left for dead while protecting bookie Luther Gillespie, Spenser embarks on an epic journey to rehabilitate his friend in body and soul. Hawk, always proud, has never been dependent on anyone. Now he is forced to make connections: to the medical technology that will ensure his physical recovery, and to reinforce the tenuous emotional ties he has to those around him. Spenser quickly learns that the Ukrainian mob is responsible for the hit, but finding a way into their tightly knit circle is not nearly so simple. Their total control of the town of Marshport, from the bodegas to the police force to the mayor's office, isn't just a sign of rampant corruption, it's a form of arrogance that only serves to ignite Hawk's desire to get even. As the body count rises, Spenser is forced to employ some questionable techniques and even more questionable hired guns while redefining his friendship with Hawk in the name of vengeance.
©2005 Robert B. Parker (P)2005 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.
Taming a Sea-Horse
Summary
Nice girls don't. But blond, beautiful April Kyle does. She's a hooker hooked on the wrong guy - and she's on her way to trouble. So is Spenser. Looking out for April has landed him in the crud of Times Square. It's not a long way to big-business boardrooms where blood money get laundered into long green, sex is a commodity, and young girls are the currency.
©1987 Robert B. Parker (P)2009 Random House
Crimson Joy
Summary
A serial killer is on the loose in Beantown and the cops can't catch him. But when the killer leaves his red rose calling card for Spenser's own Susan Silverman, he gets all the attention that Spenser and Hawk can give. Spenser plays against time while he tracks the Red Rose killer from Boston's Combat Zone to the suburbs. His trap is both daring and brave, and gives the story a satisfying climax.
©1989 Robert B. Parker (P)2009 Random House
Stardust
Summary
When a Hollywood-based TV series schedules filming in Boston, Spenser smells trouble. When he signs up to protect the show's star, Jill Joyce, he knows it's on its way. First, there's Jill herself. She's spoiled, arrogant, drugged out -- made worse by fear. Someone is out to get her -- does she imagine it, or is it real? Spenser monitors her neurosis, but finds evidence of harassment. It escalates to murder. Now begins the dangerous part -- while the act may have ended, the murderer lingers on.
©1991 Robert B. Parker (P)2009 Random House
Valediction
Summary
The most dangerous man to cross is one who isn't afraid to die. But the most deadly is one who doesn't want to live. And Spenser has just lost the woman who made life his number-one priority. So when a religious sect kidnaps a pretty young dancer, no death threat can make Spenser cut and run. Now a hit man's bullet is wearing Spenser's name. But Boston's big boys don't know Spenser's ready and willing to meet death more than halfway.
©1992 Robert B. Parker (P)2009 Random House
Robert B. Parker's Old Black Magic
Summary
Iconic, tough-but-tender Boston PI Spenser delves into the black market art scene to investigate a decades-long unsolved crime of dangerous proportions. The heist was legendary, still talked about 20 years after the priceless paintings disappeared from one of Boston's premier art museums. Most thought the art was lost forever, buried deep, sold off overseas, or, worse, destroyed as incriminating evidence. But when paint chips from the most valuable piece stolen, Gentlemen in Black by a Spanish master, arrives at the desk of a Boston journalist, the museum finds hope and enlists Spenser's help. Soon the cold art case thrusts Spenser into the shady world of black market art dealers, aged Mafia bosses, and old vendettas. A $5 million reward by the museum's top benefactor, an aged, unlikable Boston socialite, sets Spenser and pals Vinnie Morris and Hawk onto a trail of hidden secrets, jailhouse confessions, and decades-old murders. Set against the high-society art scene and the low-life back alleys of Boston, this is classic Spenser doing what he does best.
©2018 Ace Atkins, Robert B. Parker (P)2018 Random House Audio
Playmates
Summary
Spenser smells corruption in a college town. Taft University's hottest basketball star is shaving points for quick cash. All manner of sleaze -- from corrupt academics to hoods with graduate degrees -- have their fingers in the pot. Spenser's search takes him from lecture halls to blue collar bars and finally into a bloody confrontation with almost certain death. But Spenser saves an arrogant young athlete -- even though it nearly kills him to do it.
©1990 Robert B. Parker (P)2009 Random House
The Judas Goat
Summary
Spenser has gone to London -- and not to see the Queen. He's gone to track down a bunch of bombers who've blown away his client's wife and kids. His job is to catch them. Or kill them. His client isn't choosy. But there are nine killers to one Spenser -- long odds. Hawk helps balance the equation. The rest depends on a wild plan. Spenser will get one of the terrorists to play Judas Goat -- to lead him to others. Trouble is, he hasn't counted on her being very blond, very beautiful and very dangerous.
©1992 Robert B. Parker (P)2009 Random House
Appaloosa
Summary
When it comes to writing, Robert B. Parker knows no boundaries. From the iconic Spenser detective series and the novels featuring Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone, to the groundbreaking historical novel Double Play, Parker's imagination has taken readers from Boston to Brooklyn and back again. In Appaloosa, fans are taken on another trip, to the untamed territories of the West during the 1800s. When Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch arrive in Appaloosa, they find a small, dusty town suffering at the hands of renegade rancher Randall Bragg, a man who has so little regard for the law that he has taken supplies, horses, and women for his own and left the city marshal and one of his deputies for dead. Cole and Hitch, itinerant lawmen, are used to cleaning up after opportunistic thieves, but in Bragg they find an unusually wily adversary, one who raises the stakes by playing not with the rules, but with emotions. This is Robert B. Parker at his storytelling best.
©2005 Robert B. Parker (P)2005 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.
Mortal Stakes
Summary
Everybody loves a winner, and the Rabbs are major league. Marty is the Red Sox star pitcher, Linda the loving wife. She loves everyone except the blackmailer out to wreck her life. Is Marty throwing fast balls or throwing games? It doesn't take long for Spenser to link Marty's performance with Linda's past...or to find himself trapped between a crazed racketeer and an enforcer toting an M-16. America's favorite pastime has suddenly become a very dangerous sport, and one wrong move means strike three, with Spenser out for good!
©1987 Robert B. Parker (P)2009 Random House
Night and Day
Summary
Police chief Jesse Stone has received his share of unusual calls, but none can top the one from the local junior high school. When reports of lewd conduct by the school's principal, Betsy Ingersoll, filter into the station, Jesse is faced with a particularly delicate situation. Jesse, of course, would like nothing more than to see the prim, peculiar Ingersoll punished. But Betsy Ingersoll is married to the managing partner of the biggest law firm in the state, and Jay Ingersoll wants the matter buried. And he is used to getting what he wants. At the same time, the women of Paradise are being threatened by a tormented voyeur, dubbed "The Night Hawk," who's been scouring suburban neighborhoods as evening falls. Initially he's content to simply peer through windows, but as pressure builds, he becomes more reckless, entering homes, forcing his victims to strip at gunpoint, then photographing them at their most vulnerable. And according to the notes he's sending, he's not satisfied to stop there. It's up to Jesse to catch the Night Hawk, before it's too late.
©2009 Robert B Parker (P)2009 Random House
Ceremony
Summary
Spenser's out to make war, not love, as he goes after Boston's entire X-rated industry. Pretty teenager April Kyle has disappeared into the city's darkest underworld, and to rescue her, Spencer pits muscle and wit against bullets and bullies.
©1992 Robert B. Parker (P)2009 Random House
God Save the Child
Summary
Appie Knoll is the kind of suburb where kids grow up right. But something is wrong. Fourteen-year-old Kevin Bartlett disappears. Everyone thinks he's run away -- until the comic strip ransom note arrives. It doesn't take Spenser long to get the picture -- an affluent family seething with rage, a desperate boy making strange friends...friends like Vic Harroway, body builder. Mr. Muscle is Spenser's only lead and he isn't talking...except with his fists. But when push comes to shove, when a boy's life is on the line, Spenser can speak that language too.
©1987 Robert B. Parker (P)2009 Random House
The Widening Gyre
Summary
The adoring wife of a senatorial candidate has a smile as sweet as candy and dots her "i's" with little hearts. A blond beauty, she is the perfect mate for an ambitious politician, but she has a little problem with sex and drugs--a problem someone has managed to put on videotape. The big boys figure a little blackmail will put her husband out of the race. Until Spenser hops on the candidate's bandwagon. But getting back the tape of the lady's X-rated indiscretion is a nonstop express ride to trouble--trouble that is deep, wide and deadly.
©1992 Robert B Parker (P)2009 Random House
Silent Night
Summary
It’s December in Boston, and Spenser is busy planning the menu for Christmas dinner when he’s confronted in his office by a young boy named Slide. Homeless and alone, Slide 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, and Street Business is in danger of losing its tenuous foothold in the community, turning Slide and many others like him back on the street. But it’s not a simple case of intimidation - Spenser, aided by Hawk, finds a trail that leads to a dangerous drug kingpin, whose hold on the at-risk community Street Business serves threatens not just the boys’ safety and security, but their lives as well. Unfinished at the time of his death, Silent Night was completed by Parker’s longtime agent, whose decades-long association with Parker’s work gives her unique insight and perspective to his voice and storytelling style. Her contribution also speaks volumes about their enduring friendship.
©2013 Helen Brann (P)2013 Robert B. Parker