In Promised Land Spenser is hired by Harvey Shepard to find his missing wife. The case seems relatively straightforward at first, but Spenser suspects that there are more dangerous forces at work and that Promised Land, a dodgy real-estate company, is involved. A dark story of murder and redemption unfolds against what Spenser ironically thinks of as the real Promised Land, the bleak landscape of Cape Cod. Looking for Rachel Wallace sees Spenser hired to protect a lesbian feminist activist, the eponymous Rachel Wallace. After his protection gets in the way of her protest, she fires him. Shortly afterwards, she is kidnapped. Though no longer officially employed to protect her, Spenser feels duty-bound to find her. Murder follows, and behind it all lies a family who blame Wallace for, among other things, turning their daughter (and sister) into a lesbian, and one of Wallace's lovers.