7.8 /10 1 Votes
Country United States Series Spenser Publication date 1976 Originally published 1976 Genre Detective fiction Followed by The Judas Goat | 3.9/5 Goodreads Language English Publisher Houghton Mifflin Pages 182 Preceded by Mortal Stakes Page count 182 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Similar Robert B Parker books, Spenser mystery books, Edgar Award for Best Novel winners | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Promised Land is the fourth Spenser novel by Robert B. Parker, first published in 1976. It won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1977.
Contents
Plot summary
Promised Land, Inc. is the name of a real estate development company belonging to Harvey Shepard and Spenser also metaphorically refers to the Cape Cod area as the Promised Land.
Spenser is hired by Harvey Shepard to find his runaway wife, Pam. Spenser soon locates her, but promises not to force her to return to her husband against her will. He begins to suspect that Harvey Shepard has been threatened by King Powers (a big-time loan shark) when he sees Hawk at Shepard's house. Harvey fires Spenser because Spenser refuses to disclose Pam's location; Pam is staying with two militant feminists named Rose and Jane. Pam soon becomes entangled in Rose and Jane's bank robbery that resulted in the shooting death of a bank guard and calls Spenser for help. Spenser's dilemma is that he wants to reunite Harvey and Pam while also making sure that Rose and Jane go down for the bank guard's murder while simultaneously setting up King Powers to go to prison. He has to do all this while somehow managing to keep the Shepards (and himself) out of jail and still breathing.