Autorentext
Robert B. Parker was the author of seventy books, including the legendary Spenser detective series, the novels featuring police chief Jesse Stone, and the acclaimed Virgil Cole/Everett Hitch Westerns, as well as the Sunny Randall novels. Winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award and long considered the undisputed dean of American crime fiction, he died in January 2010. 
 
Alison Gaylin is a USA Today and international bestselling author whose novels have won the Edgar and Shamus awards. Her work has been published in numerous countries and has been nominated for numerous awards, including the Macavity, Anthony, ITW Thriller and Strand Book Award.  

Zusammenfassung
Boston PI Sunny Randall investigates the dark side of social media in this exciting new thriller in the bestselling series.

Sunny Randall’s newest client, Blake, seems to have it all: he is an Instagram influencer, with all the perks the lifestyle entails—a beautiful girlfriend, wealth, and adoring fans. But one of those fans has turned ugly, and Sunny is brought on board by Blake’s manager, Bethany, to protect him and to uncover who is out to kill him. In doing so, she investigates a glamorous world rife with lies and schemes…and ties to a dangerous criminal scene.

When Bethany goes missing and the threats against Blake escalate, Sunny realizes that in order to solve this case, she has to find out exactly who Blake and Bethany are, behind the Instagram filters. While digging into their pasts, she is also forced to confront her own, as old friends—and ex-husbands—reappear. With a combination of old-school crime-solving skills and modern internet savvy, Sunny will stop at nothing to catch a killer.

Leseprobe
One

"Were we ever like that?" I said. "Please tell me we weren't."

"We weren't," Spike said. "Believe me."

I was with my best friend in the bar of the restaurant he owns, both of us transfixed by a couple twentysomething influencers sitting at a dimly lit table and taking selfie after selfie, a bottle of pricey cognac looming behind them like a chaperone. I'd been told their names were Blake James and Alena Jade-apparently, last names had gone the way of MySpace. I'd also been told that they were Instagram's "it" couple, and having them here, in Spike's, would be sure to transform it from "just some place" into a "destination."

It made sense. Between them, Blake James and Alena Jade had close to a million followers, and getting them both here in Spike's, together, could ensure a house full of big-spending fans, each one of them desperate to stand in the spot where their inked-up, Fashion Nova−wearing, iron-pumping, duck-face-making idols had stood.

Blake James in particular. In addition to his wildly popular Instagram account, Blake was a YouTube sensation, with legions of viewers tuning in to his workout video channel, The Shred Shed.

As irritating as it may have been to Spike and me, I hoped the presence of these two sentient mannequins would give Spike's a much-needed prestige infusion. Despite a post-pandemic uptick in business, inflation and supply-chain issues had taken their toll on the place-just as they had on most restaurants. And my friend, for all his hard work, was back in the red.

I was worried Spike might do something stupid to keep his tavern afloat. Again. Which is why I listened to a woman named Bethany Rose who called herself a "media concierge" and assured me she could "marshal the power of the Gram" to ensure that Spike would never feel the need to swim with another loan shark. But more on that later.

All you need to know at this point is that Bethany Rose brought us Blake and Alena.

Blake rested his chiseled chin on Alena's bare shoulder, a selfie stick holding the phone high over their heads, the two of them pouting up at it contentedly.

Spike stared at them. "How can anybody spend that much time looking at themselves?"

"Maybe they're looking at each other." I took a swallow of my pinot noir-a nice year, recommended by Spike, and probably one-twentieth the price of the influencers' cognac. I did have to admire Alena. Looking the way she did took more effort than I could ever imagine mustering-and I'm not exactly low-maintenance.

I once had a drag queen client and I doubted he spent as much time with the contouring brush as Alena did. Her face was so sculpted she seemed almost unreal, and her shimmering hair was perfectly behaved, like a swath of black silk. She had to have spent tens of thousands on plastic surgery to get that body-which was really something you'd see only in comic books or the Kardashian family.

Blake, meanwhile... Okay. If I was going to be honest, I didn't mind looking at him. "I'd love to paint that man," I said. I hadn't intended to say it out loud, but sue me. He had the most symmetrical face I'd ever seen.

"Meh," Spike said.

I stared at him. "Are you serious?"

He shrugged. "He's not my type. I've punched too many guys who look like him."

Blake raised his glass for another selfie and smiled, his Caribbean-blue eyes an exact match with the sleeveless jacket he was wearing, his teeth gleaming nearly as much as his exposed, tatted biceps. And then Blake shouted, "Let's do a cheers!" like a five-year-old.

A couple of Spike's regular patrons shot him death glares. The bartender visibly cringed. Even Alena looked embarrassed.

I turned back to Spike. "I get what you're saying."

He sighed. "Is this really necessary?" he said. "I mean . . . the last time this place was in trouble, I handled it."

I raised an eyebrow at him.

"Okay, I guess I shouldn't have-"

"Taken out a loan without reading the fine print?"

"Uh-huh."

"Gotten involved with the Russian Mob?"

"Yep."

"All of the above, plus breaking a loan shark's nose and nearly getting both of us killed?"

"Yeah. Except for the nose-breaking part. I stand by that decision."

I grinned, clinked my glass with his. "Let's do a cheers to that," I said.

"To Spike's," he said.

"To Spike's."

He swallowed his wine, then glanced at his watch. "So... the customers should be rushing in any minute now, huh?"

Spike was watching the door. I was, too, but not for the same reasons. Unlike my best friend, there was only one customer I needed to see walk into this place tonight. And that was media concierge Bethany Rose. She was late.

Two

It wasn't long before new customers began streaming into Spike's-dozens of them, all under thirty, the girls in rompers and sky-high heels, the boys in skintight T-shirts and stinking of Axe spray, all of them spray-tanned within an inch of their lives. It wasn't the typical crowd you'd see in Spike's-or in Boston, for that matter. It was more like Hollywood meets Jersey Shore. But Spike didn't seem to mind. When the fourth or fifth group started a tab, I saw him smile for the first time in I couldn't remember how long.

"This media maven-what's her name?" Spike said.

"Bethany Rose. And it's media concierge."

"Whatever," he said. "Color me pleasantly surprised."

I had to agree. Even if this wasn't my ideal bar clientele, money was money. I glanced at the door again. "She should be here."

"Who?"

"Bethany."

"Why?"

I sighed heavily. "We're supposed to talk terms."

I'd spoken to Bethany Rose the previous day at the suggestion of Lee Farrell. It felt weird to hear a no-nonsense cop like Lee use a term like media concierge, but as he said himself when I told him Spike might lose his bar again, "Bullshit times call for bullshit measures."

Lee had known about Bethany from his niece Emily Barnes, a pretty college student with a habit of getting herself into un-pretty situations. These days, Emily was earning extra c…