Many of you may not know who Parker was, but for those of us who read detective novels, Robert Parker's Spenser is the literary grandson of Phillip Marlowe. The 38 Spenser novels (which gave rise to the TV show Spenser: For Hire) rank among my all time favorite books.
Spenser was an ideal man for me - tough, macho, intelligent, sensitive, and a helluva cook. He loved his woman faithfully, and was the perfect man to have on your 6 in a fight. He also had no qualms about killing someone who needed killing.
It is no coincidence that my son's name is also Spencer (allbeit the Americanized spelling). Now I only regret that I never wrote Mr. Parker and told him that.
I am going to miss Mr. Parker and Spenser so much.
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Publisher Says Robert B. Parker, Author Of 'Spenser' Mysteries, Has Died
12:05 pm
He wrote short, vivid, sentences about a tough guy with a soft heart.
Robert B. Parker, author of the Spenser crime novels about a hard-boiled Boston private eye, has died -- according to his publisher, Penguin Group.
Journalist Sarah Weinman broke the news on her blog, Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind, where she writes that:
At the age of 77, "just sitting at his desk" at his home in Cambridge, Mass., according to an email sent out by a representative of his U.K. publisher Quercus, Robert B. Parker is dead.
That would seem to be a perfect ending to his story.