spenser (fictitious character)

Spenser heads to Potshot, Arizona when he is hired to investigate the murder of a recent L.A. transplant. The once rough and tumble small town has been transformed by the wealthy Los Angeles residents looking for a quiet place to relax. The peace is threatened when a gang starts harassing the town, and it soon escalates into murder.

Boston private detective Spenser finds himself at odds with mobster Sonny Karnofsky when his investigation of the decades-old murder of Emily Gordon, gunned down during a bank heist, turns up links to the killing of Karnofsky's daughter.

Spenser, hired to find evidence to prove that Mary Smith, the trophy wife of wealthy Nathan Smith, did not kill her husband, becomes suspicious when a young woman, recently fired from Smith's bank, also turns up dead.

When fourteen-year-old Mattie Sullivan asks Spenser to look into her mother's murder, he's not completely convinced by her claim that the police investigation four years ago was botched. Mattie is gruff, street-smart, and wise beyond her years, left to care for her younger siblings and an alcoholic grandmother in a dilapidated apartment in South Boston. But her need for closure and her determination to make things right hit Spenser where he lives--they're the very characteristics he abides by. Mattie believes the man convicted of the crime is innocent, and points Spenser to the Southie toughs she saw carrying her mother away hours before her murder. Neither the Boston PD nor the neighborhood thugs are keen on his dredging up the past, but as Spenser becomes more involved in the case, he starts to realize that Mattie may be on to something. He will need Hawk's help to find peace for Mattie--a job that's more dangerous than Spenser ever thought.

Spenser puts his life in danger after he fails his assignment to protect the person responsible for handing over ransom money for a stolen painting and decides to track down the thieves and retrieve the masterpiece on his own.

Spenser is called in to investigate when actor Jumbo Nelson is accused of raping and murdering a young woman, and as Spenser tries to uncover the truth, he forms an unusual alliance with Jumbo's bodyguard, a young Native American known as Sixkill.