When Spenser's cohort, Hawk, is hired by the tenants of a rundown block known as Double Deuce, Spenser is roped in to help. But before they can start the clean-up, Spenser must take on a feared band of teenage urban warriors.
Spenser smells corruption in a college town. Taft University's hottest basketball star is shaving points for quick cash. All manner of sleaze -- from corrupt academics to hoods with graduate degrees -- have their fingers in the pot. Spenser's search takes him from lecture halls to blue collar bars and finally into a bloody confrontation with almost certain death. But Spenser saves an arrogant young athlete -- even though it nearly kills him to do it.
Nice girls don't. But blond, beautiful April Kyle does. She's a hooker hooked on the wrong guy -- and she's on her way to trouble. So is Spenser. Looking out for April has landed him in the crud of Times Square. It's not a long way to big-business boardrooms where blood money get laundered into long green, sex is a commodity, and young girls are the currency.
A serial killer is on the loose in Beantown and the cops can't catch him. But when the killer leaves his red rose calling card for Spenser's own Susan Silverman, he gets all the attention that Spenser and Hawk can give. Spenser plays against time while he tracks the Red Rose killer from Boston's Combat Zone to the suburbs. His trap is both daring and brave, and gives the story a satisfying climax.
