Showing results by narrator "Joe Mantegna" in All Categories

Joe Posnanski's biography of the late Penn State football coach Joe Paterno follows in the tradition of works by Richard Ben Cramer on Joe DiMaggio and David Maraniss on Vince Lombardi. Having gained unprecedented access to Paterno, as well as the coach's personal notes and files, Posnanski spent the last two years of Paterno's life covering the coach, on (and off) the field and through the scandal that ended Paterno's legendary career.

Heidi Bradshaw is wealthy, beautiful, and well-connected - and she needs Spenser's help. In a most unlikely request, Heidi, a notorious golddigger recently separated from her latest husband, recruits the Boston P.I. to accompany her to her private island, Tashtego, for her daughter's wedding. Spenser is unsure of what his role as personal bodyguard will entail, but he consents when it's decided that he can bring his beloved Susan Silverman along.

In 1974, a revolutionary group calling itself the Dread Scott Brigade held up the old Shawmut Bank in Boston's Audubon Circle. Money was stolen. And a woman named Emily Gordon, a visitor in town cashing traveler's checks, was shot and killed. No one saw who shot her. Despite security camera photos and a letter from the group claiming responsibility, the perpetrators have remained at large for nearly three decades. Now it's up to Spenser to solve her murder.

Boston P.I. Spenser is back! He's traveled west to investigate a murder in Potshot, Arizona, a former mining town reborn as a hangout for Los Angeles millionaires. A motley band of thieves, lead by The Preacher, is wreaking havoc, and Spenser must find a way to beat the gang at their own dangerous game.

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.

What started out as a joke landed 17-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.

Kinjo Heywood is one of the New England Patriots’ marquee players - a hard-nosed linebacker who’s earned his reputation as one of the toughest guys in the league. When off-field violence repeatedly lands Heywood in the news, his slick agent hires Spenser to find the men who he says have been harassing his client.

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.

Called upon by The Hammond Museum and renowned art scholar Dr. Ashton Prince, Spenser accepts his latest case: to provide protection during a ransom exchange-money for a stolen painting. The case becomes personal when Spenser fails to protect his client and the valuable painting remains stolen. Convinced that Ashton Prince played a bigger role than just ransom delivery boy, Spenser enters into a daring game of cat-and-mouse with the thieves....

Once upon a time, though not so long ago, there was a girl named April Kyle, a beautiful teenage runaway who turned to prostitution to escape her terrible family life. Now, April Kyle's return in Hundred-Dollar Baby is nothing short of shocking.

Boston's premier P.I. investigates the murder of a prominent local banker with family ties to the Mayflower - and perhaps the mob. It's hard not to imagine the victim's young bride as the one with her finger on the trigger. Even her lawyer thinks she's guilty. But Mary Smith is entitled to the best defense she can afford - and thanks to her late husband's millions, she can afford plenty - so Spenser hires on to investigate.

On location in Boston, bad-boy actor Jumbo Nelson is accused of the rape and murder of a young woman. From the start the case seems fishy, so the Boston PD calls on Spenser to investigate. Things don't look so good for Jumbo, whose appetites for food, booze, and sex are as outsized as his name. He was the studio's biggest star, but he's become its biggest liability...

Spenser knows something's amiss the moment Dennis Doherty walks into his office. The guy's aggressive yet wary, in the way men frightened for their marriages always are. So when Doherty asks Spenser to investigate his wife Jordan's abnormal behavior, Spenser agrees. A job's a job, after all.

When 14-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.

Spenser is back and embroiled in a dangerous and multi-layered case. Someone has been killing racehorses at stables across the south, and Walter Clive, president of Three Fillies Stables, hires him to find out who. Spenser goes to Georgia to protect Hugger Mugger, a two-year-old destined to become the next Secretariat. Disregarding the resentment of the local Georgia law enforcement, he takes the case. Despite the veneer of civility, Spenser encounters tensions beneath the surface old boy bonhomie.

A knock on Spenser's office door can only mean one thing: a new case. This time the visitor is a local lawyer with an interesting story. Elizabeth Shaw specializes in wills and trusts at the Boston law firm of Shaw & Cartwright, and over the years she's developed a friendship with wives of very wealthy men. However, these rich wives have a mutual secret: they've all had an affair with a man named Gary Eisenhower- and now he's blackmailing them for money.

Lily Ellsworth, erect, firm, white-haired, and stylish, is the grand dame of Dowling, Massachusetts, and possesses an iron will and a bottomless purse. When she hires Spenser to investigate her grandson Jared Clark's alleged involvement in a school shooting, Spenser is led into an inquiry that grows more harrowing at every turn. Though seven people were killed in cold blood, and despite Jared's being named as a co-conspirator by the other shooter, Mrs. Ellsworth is convinced of her grandson's innocence.

Carolina Garcia-Ramirez is a rising star in national politics, taking on the establishment with her progressive agenda. Tough, outspoken, and driven, the young congresswoman has ignited a new conversation in Boston about race, poverty, health care, and the environment. Now facing her second campaign, she finds herself not only fighting a tight primary with an old guard challenger but also contending with numerous death threats coming from hundreds of suspects.

From its inception, Atlantic City has always been a town dedicated to the fast buck, and this wide-reachinghistory offers a riveting account of its past 100 year, from the city's heyday as a Prohibition-era mecca of lawlessness to its rebirth as a legitimate casino resort in the modern era.

Julia and Fred and Willy and Jane are happily married and the best of friends, until a postcard arrives with news of the imminent arrival of a certain handsome Frenchman. Gay, debonair, and utterly sophisticated.