A polarizing and politically provocative podcast host. A bankrupt and shuttered hospital. And a white-hot debate over immigration and who does, and does not, qualify as a “real” American.

You don’t have to look far to find echoes of our own politics in “ Showdown ,” the 53rd outing for Spenser, Boston’s most famous (fictional) private investigator.

And that’s no surprise, given the professional pedigree of author Mike Lupica, a veteran newspaper columnist, who’s now on his third Spenser novel. The series was created by the legendary Robert B. Parker , who died in 2010, with author Ace Atkins taking up the mantle after that.

Read More: Mass. politics is the secret sauce as Boston PI Spenser returns in new novel | Bay State Briefing

The book returns readers to Spenser’s Boston, w

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