Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Spare Change
    Unavailable
    Spare Change
    Unavailable
    Spare Change
    Audiobook5 hours

    Spare Change

    Written by Robert Parker

    Narrated by Kate Burton

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Hi, Phil,
    You miss me? I got bored, so I thought I'd reestablish our relationship. Give us both something to do in our later years. Stay tuned.
    Spare Change

    When a serial murderer dubbed "The Spare Change Killer" by the Boston press surfaces after three decades in hiding, the police immediately seek out the cop, now retired, who headed the original task force: Phil Randall. As a sharp-eyed investigator and a doting parent, Phil calls on his daughter Sunny to help trap the criminal who eluded him so many years before.

    When the killer strikes a second time, and a third, the murders take a macabre turn, as, eerily, the victims each resemble Sunny. While her father pressures her to drop the case, her need to create a trap to catch her killer grows. In a compelling game of cat-and-mouse, Sunny Randall uses all her skills to draw out her prey, realizing too late that she's setting herself up to become the next victim.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJun 5, 2007
    ISBN9780739318720
    Unavailable
    Spare Change
    Author

    Robert Parker

    Robert B Parker was the best-selling author of over 60 books, including Small Vices, Sudden Mischief, Hush Money, Hugger Mugger, Potshot, Widows Walk, Night Passage, Trouble in Paradise, Death in Paradise, Family Honor, Perish Twice, Shrink Rap, Stone Cold, Melancholy Baby, Back Story, Double Play, Bad Business, Cold Service, Sea Change, School Days and Blue Screen. He died in 2010 at the age of 77.

    More audiobooks from Robert Parker

    Related to Spare Change

    Related audiobooks

    Thrillers For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      A Thrill A Second

      Sep 4, 2020

      Gentle Swedish detective Ulf Varg is back in the second instalment of The Department of Sensitive Crimes series. His days are marred by petty bureaucratic red tape, his irritation with his long-winded colleague Blomquist and his unrequited longing fo

      2 min read

    • Article

      Behind Closed Doors

      Jun 19, 2022

      Behind Closed Doors
      3 min read

    • Article

      SECRETS & LIES

      Jul 28, 2023

      BY MARK BILLINGHAM LITTLE, BROWN Detective Sergeant Declan Miller is back at work following the murder of his wife, Alex. His new partner is DS Sara Xiu, a heavy-metal enthusiast who rides a powerful Yamaha motorcycle. Their first case is the double

      3 min read

    • Article

      Roller-coaster Ride

      Feb 3, 2023

      By JANE HARPER Macmillan A new book from Australian crime-thriller writer Harper is always something to be excited about. In this, her fifth novel, she brings back Melbourne investigator Aaron Falk introduced in her amazing first novel, The Dry. Aar

      3 min read

    • Article

      Thrilling Reads

      Jun 26, 2020

      Robert Mitchum lives in the small town of Marlboro, New York, on the banks of the Hudson River. He once had ambitions to become a Navy Seal but was rejected because he couldn’t pass the swimming test. Now he delivers newspapers and acts as the town’s

      3 min read

    • Article

      Locations Of Interest

      Oct 23, 2022

      A thriller set in Masterton? I live in Masterton and I can assure you that nothing thrilling ever happens around here. Perhaps I should hang out more on the seedy side, which is where the winner of the 2021 Michael Gifkins Prize (for an unpublished m

      2 min read

    • Article

      Gripping Reads

      Mar 20, 2020

      Gripping Reads
      2 min read

    • Article

      Bringing The Guilty to Book (and Podcast)

      Feb 17, 2023

      ‘IF it bleeds, it leads.’ The phrase originated in the early days of broadcast journalism, but it’s no less true today. ‘For me, it’s become synonymous with our ever-increasing obsession with true crime,’ writes Nicole Engelbrecht, the voice (and bra

      12 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Sep 14, 2022

      Book Club
      5 min read

    • Article

      Spanish Inquisition

      Mar 23, 2023

      Spanish Inquisition
      3 min read

    • Article

      Books Of The Month

      May 26, 2023

      By Alice Bell Phantoms abound in Alice Bell’s debut, a modern mashup of Ghosts, Blithe Spirit and Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased). Medium Claire Hendricks has an advantage over other table-tappers: she can see ghosts, and her best friend at school, Soph

      2 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Aug 18, 2023

      Books
      4 min read

    • Article

      5 Minutes With... Richard Osman

      Nov 27, 2023

      The Thursday Murder Club is set to make the big move from page to screen with movie legend Steven Spielberg at the helm. How does that feel? It’s very exciting. They’re starting filming next March, and the casting is being lined up at the moment. No

      2 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Jan 20, 2020

      Theresa’s former husband Theo has been little but a shadow in her life: he’s spent the past two decades in an institution. Now that he’s dead, she finds herself unsure how to mourn for a man she’s tried so hard to put behind her. But going through a

      4 min read

    • Article

      CHILL Out

      Dec 30, 2022

      CHILL Out
      5 min read

    • Article

      Couple On The Edge

      Dec 18, 2022

      This domestic suspense novel is so grippy, I felt like I’d been Velcroed to it. Dramatic and twisty, The Soulmate is one of those stories that is full of ordinary people who aren’t quite what they seem. It’s about a marriage, that from the outside se

      3 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Nov 18, 2019

      Books
      4 min read

    • Article

      Familiar Procedure

      Oct 1, 2018

      Scandinavian crime series (and crime novels) are unapologetically formulaic. A body is found in a village. A talented detective saddled with personal baggage is called upon to solve the case with a sidekick who means well but aggravates the hero. The

      1 min read

    • Article

      Home Before Dark

      Apr 2, 2020

      Home Before Dark
      1 min read

    • Article

      The Irishman

      Dec 27, 2019

      The Irishman
      7 min read

    • Article

      Masters Of Suspense

      Aug 28, 2020

      Captains Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido, dedicated members of the police special-investigative unit the Hawks, look into the death of a former cop, Johnson Johnson, who fell from a luxury Rovos Rail train in the Karoo. Questions arise about two fel

      1 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Apr 7, 2021

      It’s a tense, pacy case for Lynda La Plante’s detective Jack Warr in the second book in the series, following last year’s opener Buried. Now married and a new dad, Warr is called away to work undercover in the countryside to unravel a series of viole

      1 min read

    Reviews for Spare Change

    3.5/5

    151 ratings18 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      This was my first book by Robert B. Parker and I enjoyed it for the most part. I made my father read it with me because it was definitely as if my father and I were Phil and Sunny Randall. They bantered like we do, sass like we do, and discuss life as we do. It felt sometimes as if Robert Parker was spying on us. I enjoyed the story and most of the characters. The mystery was good, but Sunny did spend a lot of time "knowing it all" (I'm not that bad. My dad might disagree though). My main complaint was all the "I said" then "Dad said" then "I said" then "Dad said" in the book. It made the writing very choppy. A thesaurus might have helped with that a little. But the plot and main characters sold me on the series. Dad and I will definitely read another one.
    • 3/5
      I think this is the last Sunny Randall. It's pretty standard serial killer stuff where the killer kind of gives himself away and then they just have to sneak around trying to catch him. Sunny's therapy sessions with Dr. Silverman feel a little on the nose for my taste, and her mother's revolting racism made me uncomfortable. Still, fun enough for an afternoon's distraction.
    • 3/5
      Sunny and her dad Phil attempt to close out a cold case he had before he left the Boston Police. The case had suddenly turned hot again as a new victim is discovered. The serial killer known as Spare Change (named so because he leaves a nickel, dime, and quarter behind at each murder scene) has struck again. Phil gets called out of retirement to advise on the case and he brings his private-eye daughter with him.

      This book was okay, I know there are die-hard Robert Parker fans out there that eat up every word he writes, I have favorite authors like that also. "Spare Change" was my attempt to branch out my "Parker experience". I love the Jesse Stone series and I liked the movie that Sunny Randall appeared with Jesse. Don't a bad book, it's just not Jesse Stone.
    • 4/5
      Sunny Randall, private eye, is back to help her dad on an old case that was recently reopened. Both are former members of the Boston Police Department. The dad, Phil Randall, tried to, but never caught the Spare Change serial killer before retiring from BPD. The killer's modus operandi: a single bullet to the head, and three coins left near the body. When more bodies with the same MI start showing up, Phil is called out of retirement to help BPD determine if there is a copycat loose, or if the original Spare Change killer has also come out of retirement. Phil calls on his daughter, Sunny, to help. This is classic Parker: great character development, good dialog, believable plot, interesting subplots, local color, dysfunctional family members, and lots of introspection. Highly recommended!
    • 3/5
      Some of Parker's latest works seem a little bleak. There were always bad guys, but with the incomparable Ms. Silverman's insight one always felt there was a motive to follow. Not so with Spare Change.
    • 3/5
      Don’t get me wrong. I really like Robert B. Parker novels, but I don’t like everything about them. Spare Change features Sunny Randall, a female private eye and one of Parker’s three favorite characters (hereinafter referred to as “the troika”) who often cross one another’s paths in solving crimes in and around Boston. Sunny is the sometime (in this book, former) girlfriend of Jesse Stone, a second member of the troika. Sunny’s psychoanalyst is Dr. Susan Silverman, who is the girlfriend of Spenser, the mono-named private eye who is Parker’s most famous character and the third member of the troika. Parker’s novels frequently feature conversations between the main crime solvers and their shrinks, which may just be a sly trope to explain the characters’ motivations. On the other hand, he seems to have a strong affection for psychoanalysts, if not for the process of psychoanalysis. In this book, Sunny Randall gives a great deal of credit to Dr. Silverman’s insight for helping her to understand herself and for helping to solve a series of murders. And yet, in the actual conversations, Silverman just seems to nod, grunt, or otherwise tacitly agree with Randall. Silverman herself is my least favorite Parker character. She is too perfect (at least in Parker’s and Randall’s eyes). At one point Randall says:"She was older than I, but it would be difficult to say just how one would know that. She was positively beautiful. Her body was graceful and strong. Even in her self-abnegating shrink mode, she reeked of womanhood. The force of her filled the room.”Later, Randall suffuses:"She seemed relaxed and focused. Her makeup was understated and flawless. Her hair was in place without any hint of hairspray. Her clothes fit her perfectly. They were expensive and subtle, suitable for psychotherapy. Appropriate. Like her. Always appropriate. Did she ever get a stomachache? Was she ever scared? Did she always know what was what?”Pullease! Parker’s novels are usually suspenseful, and always written in a taut, no nonsense style. All of his other crime novels that I have read feature witty repartee among the characters, a feature that provides a comedic riff to defuse the tension. But for some reason, Parker could not seem to work his usual verbal scintillation into this novel. If this had been the first Parker novel I had read (it was one of the last he wrote), I doubt that I would have read 20 more. But it wasn’t, and I still think he is pretty darn good. Incidentally, even though he waxes a bit too eloquently about Dr. Silverman and isn’t up to his unusually high standard of snark, Parker’s Spare Change is still a pretty entertaining detective novel.(JAB)
    • 3/5
      Odd book...Sunny finds the bad guy within the first 10% of the book and then spends the rest of the book trying to prove it...not good/not bad...just different.

      Same great characters minus Richie & Jesse.

      None of the Sunny Randall books are great but they are what they are and there are times when I don't want anything more than a fast read with great characters that is impossible to be around.

      Robert B. Parker will be missed - he's one of the greats.
    • 4/5
      Sunny's back and this time she's working with her father to solve a serial killer case. We know the answer to who the killer is quite early in the book, so the tension comes from the search for enough evidence to arrest him and from Sunny's therapeutic quest for answers to her relationship problems. This time it's all about fathers and children in both the case and therapy. Another enjoyable outing although I'm pretty ready for Sunny's relationship with her ex-husband Richie to be resolved one way or the other.
    • 4/5
      My first Sunny Randall book, but the sixth in the series. Sunny knows Jesse Stone and a lot of police from the Spenser series show up. It's more a procedural story than a mystery and was what I was in the mood for---easy reading.
    • 4/5
      I'd read a hard copy of this book, when it first came out, but picked this up at my favorite Franklin NC Independent BookStore, BooKs Unlimited, to keep us entertained for the ride back to Charleston. Robert B Parker didn't disappoint, and neither did the reader, Kate Burton. It was the first Sunny Randall story that my husband had encountered, and he chuckled a lot when he stumbled into familiar characters from the Spencer series.
    • 3/5
      I like the idea of a father/daughter detective team. I enjoyed the mystery but it didn't grab me like I hoped. I will likely give Sunny another chance, though!
    • 4/5
      I read Spare Change and Night & Day right after. They both have the same premise. Everyone knows who the killer is and the trick is to prove it. Both have the undercurrent of the main character's inability to have a sustaining relationship with a significant other. Both have witty repartee between characters. Not sure why, but I liked Spare Change better.
    • 4/5
      it seems to me that the sunny randall books are more about the people than the crime, even tho parker does a nice job with that, too. as a very wise woman said, it was like settling in with old friends when i started this. i don't get how a man can write from a woman's perspective as well as parker does. loved the interaction between sunny and her dad, the vignettes with "Mother," not to mention Spike and Rosie, and last but not least, one of the creepiest serial killers in a while.
    • 4/5
      Spare Change by Robert Parker teams up Sunny Randall and her father in a case involving a serial killer who drops coins next to the bodies of his victims. Although Parker's dialogue is always razor sharp and his characters well delineated, there's a certain perfunctory quality about the plot that perhaps comes from writing too many crime dramas over the years. You won't be disappointed by this book, but you won't necessarily remember it as one of Parker's best, either. A good airport read. You'll enjoy yourself between the soft drinks and the on board movie.
    • 5/5
      good dialogue as usual for Parker. Serial killer separated by 20 years. Sunny works with Dad Phil on the mystery. Richie back, Rosie and Spike the same. easy read.
    • 4/5
      Sunny's assisting her father this time around. A serial killer dubbed the Spare Change Killer has resurfaced after an extended quiet period. Phil Randall was the lead detective on the case the first time around, and when the bodies, tapped by a single shot to head, and left with a sparse handful of change strategically placed, start resurfacing, the Boston PD calls him in as a consultant. It doesn't take long for the killer to be picked out, but there's the pesky matter of evidence to consider. Along with a nerve-wracking game of cat and mouse with the killer, Sunny's personal life is as complicated as ever.Parker's books are inevitably quick reads with punchy dialog and predictable outcomes. While it would be easy enough to substitute Spencer or even Jesse Stone for Sunny in many of the plots, she has her own appeal -- what woman hasn't, at one point or another, lain down on the bed/floor to get her jeans zipped so she can make just that impression. And who could resist Rosie?
    • 3/5
      Some of Parker's latest works seem a little bleak. There were always bad guys, but with the incomparable Ms. Silverman's insight one always felt there was a motive to follow. Not so with Spare Change.
    • 4/5
      A decent Parker novel, featuring Sunny Randall, with guest appearances by Susan Silverman, Martin Quirk, Frank Belson, etc. from Parker's Spenser series. I can never quite see Parker writing a female lead which impedes my enjoyment of the novel. Sunny and company never seem quite as richly defined as Spenser, Hawk, et. al. although I do enjoy Spike as her friend.