If you are a fan of Robert B. Parker, you probably know that his estate selected Ace Atkins to continue the Spenser series of novels. I liked Parker’s writing, but Little White Lies is the first Ace Atkins novel I’ve read. I enjoyed the trip through my favorite city of Boston and the flashback to the TV series, Spenser for Hire with Spenser and Hawk, from the 1980s.

Spenser’s client, Connie Kelly, referred to him by his psychiatrist girlfriend, wants him to find M. Brooks Wells who conned her out of almost three hundred thousand dollars and then disappeared. Spenser finds that Wells’ claims of ex-Navy Seal, ex-CIA, etc. are all fiction. The ATF is also after Brooks, trying to connect the dots in a gun-running case. Connie Kelly follows Brooks to Georgia and is shot. Suicide or murder? Spenser and Hawk catch up with Wells  preaching in a popular church. They work trying to prove Brooks murdered Kelly and to unravel the gun-running ring.

It didn’t feel quite like a Parker novel. But it’s been a few years since I read one, and my memory might be faulty.