The Godwulf Manuscript
Robert B. Parker
 Set in the early 1970s, this novel serves as the introduction to Spenser, a private investigator in Boston. Spenser is hired by Bradford W. Forbes, the president of the fictional Taft university (heavily implied to be Northeastern) to recover a stolen illuminated manuscript, a medieval document of great historical and literary importance. It is being held ransom by an unknown organization that demands $100,000 be donated to a free school for the manuscript's return. It has no inherent monetary value and cannot be fenced. Head of campus security Carl Tower recommends investigating a radical student group called 'SCACE' (Student Committee Against Capitalist Exploitation) and their secretary, Terry Orchard. After talking to her and boyfriend Dennis Powell, Spenser receives a call from Terry in the middle of the night requesting help. Spenser arrives at her apartment to find Dennis murdered, the killer having used Terry's gun, and Terry under the influence of an unknown drug. He determines that the murder is an attempt to frame Terry and from that point is determined to clear her name, believing the missing manuscript and Dennis's murder are related. Spenser's investigation leads him to Lowell Hayden, an English professor at the university who is reputedly an anonymous member of SCACE. Spenser asks permission of the English Department head to interview the members of the faculty but is rebuffed. Ignoring the department head's warning Spenser sneaks up to Hayden's office and interviews him anyway. Hayden denies knowing either Dennis Powell or Terry Orchard, although Spenser believes Hayden does in fact know them. Spenser leaves the English Department offices and is met by campus security: he has been summarily 'fired' from finding the manuscript. Spenser is summoned to meet Joe Broz, a local crime lord, shortly after talking to Hayden. Broz warns Spenser to stop his investigation and hints that the manuscript will be returned if he does. The very next day the manuscript is anonymously returned to the university, just as Broz said it would be. Undeterred by this series of events Spenser continues his investigation to prove Terry's innocence in the murder of Powell and tie it to the theft of the manuscript. Spenser tries to contact Cathy Connelly, Terry Orchard's former roommate and the only other person who knew Terry owned a gun. Connelly doesn't answer her door so Spenser breaks in. He finds Connelly's body floating in the bathtub, in his estimation murdered. Boston Police Captain Yates believes the death was accidental but his subordinates, Lieutenant Martin Quirk and Sergeant Frank Belson, believe otherwise. Nor do they believe Terry Orchard murdered Dennis Powell. Spenser begins working unofficially with Quirk and Belson to find the truth behind the Powell and Connelly murders. This is the first of many such collaborations that continue throughout the Spenser series. It is a mutually beneficial relationship: the police are able to use Spenser to gather information that they could not obtain through strictly legal channels and Spenser is able to use police resources to which he would not normally have access. After a gun battle with some of Broz's gun thugs near Jamaica Pond in Boston and a life and death struggle with Broz's top hit man in a Boston hotel, Spenser ties Joe Broz to Lowell Hayden, leading to Hayden's arrest and possibly Broz's arrest. Dennis Powell was in fact dealing heroin on the university campus, heroin supplied by Broz to Hayden, and Hayden to Powell. Hayden believed the heroin would allow people to realize the truth behind SCACE's anarchist ideals; Powell dealt it for the sake of the money to be made from it. Believing Powell had betrayed SCACE Hayden had Broz put a hit on Powell, orchestrated the framing of Terry Orchard for the crime, and murdered Cathy Connelly himself to cover it up. The manuscript was stolen by Powell at Hayden's behest to help fund SCACE's cause. Broz had Hayden return it in the hopes that Spenser would drop the case before discovering the heroin distribution scheme.