Robert B. Parker’s Kickback

P.I. Spenser, knight-errant of the Back Bay, returns in this stellar addition to the iconic New York Times–bestselling series from author Ace Atkins.

What started out as a joke landed seventeen-year-old Dillon Yates in a lockdown juvenile facility in Boston Harbor. When he set up a prank Twitter account for his vice principal, he never dreamed he could be brought up on criminal charges, but that’s exactly what happened.

This is Blackburn, Massachusetts, where zero tolerance for minors is a way of life.

Leading the movement is tough-as-nails Judge Joe Scali, who gives speeches about getting tough on today’s wild youth. But Dillon’s mother, who knows other Blackburn kids who are doing hard time for minor infractions, isn’t buying Scali’s line. She hires Spenser to find the truth behind the draconian sentencing.

From the Harbor Islands to a gated Florida community, Spenser and trusted ally Hawk follow a trail through the Boston underworld with links to a shadowy corporation that runs New England’s private prisons. They eventually uncover a culture of corruption and cover-ups in the old mill town, where hundreds of kids are sent off to for-profit juvie jails.

Review

“Atkins does a wonderful job with the characters created by Parker. To loyalists it may be heresy, but a case can be made for the Atkins novels being better than some of the last Spenser mysteries penned by Parker. A top-notch thriller.”—Booklist (starred)

“It’s great to see Spenser tackle a social evil with its roots in real life.”—Kirkus

“A topical plot line propels bestseller Atkins’s engrossing fourth Spenser novel…Once again, Atkins has done a splendid job of capturing the voice of the late Robert B. Parker.”—Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Ace Atkins is the Edgar-nominated author of seventeen books, including five books in the Quinn Colson series. Selected by the Robert B. Parker estate to continue the Spenser novels, he has also written Robert. B. Parker’s Lullaby, Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland, and Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot, all of which were New York Times bestsellers. Atkins lives in Oxford, Mississippi.