Promised Land

Spenser — the gutsy hero of The Godwulf Manuscript, God Save the Child, and Mortal Stakes — is breaking all the rules again, and when his newest adventure leads him to summertime Cape Cod he forgets the private investigator's first law: Don't make waves.

He's supposed to be looking for a runaway wife, but the hunt soon embroils both Spenser and his friend Susan Silverman in an assortment of fools and villains with extortion, bank robbery, and murder on their minds.

The result is another witty, acerbic tale in the great Spenser tradition — a treat as artfully prepared as one of his gourmet masterpieces.