R.I.P. Robert B. Parker

As you may have heard, Robert. B. Parker died yesterday at the age of 77, apparently while working at his desk. Parker created one of the more enduring private eyes in recent fiction, Boston’s Spenser, featured in more than thirty novels, as well as several standalones, westerns (including Appaloosa), the Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall series and even a couple of young adult novels.

While his recent novels lacked the impact of his earlier ones--due perhaps to the demands of writing three or four books a year, as he did of late--he is credited with reviving the P.I. genre in the seventies, when it was considered passe. Some of the Spenser novels from that period, especially Early Autumn and Looking for Rachel Wallace, are in my view classics.

I felt incredibly flattered when critics compared my work to his and was saddened to hear of his death at a relatively early age. At least he died doing what he loved, having achieved in his career what most writers can only dream of.

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