Robert B. Parker

[Deathstroke]

Sadly I must report that on Monday January 18th, author Robert B. Parker passed away at the age of 77.

I saw the obituary in the paper this morning and it just about kicked me in the gut.

[Subotai]

Gonna be tough. Parker was my introduction to crime fiction way back when I was maybe 12 or 13. He may have fallen out of vogue in recent years - it seemed more cynical, noirish writers came into style - but bottom line, Parker could write. He belonged to an earlier generation. As irritatingly smug as Spenser could be, no matter how many characters Spenser encountered came across as developmentally delayed, Spenser's self-effacing sense of humour and virtues shone through.

There's a surplus of crime fiction writers who specialize in serial killers, pathologists, etc., but who now carries that Hammett/Marlowe/Archer torch? Robert Crais maybe? In the past several years we've lost Ed McBain, Donald Westlake, James Crumley, Tony Hillerman, and now Parker - the ranks of the Old Guard of crime writing thins.

Glad Parker got to see a Red Sox championship before he died. RIP Bob.

[Doc Shannara]

To Hell with death, man.

I'm so sick of it.

And to Hell with Bob Parker being gone.

Shit.

[Deathstroke]

We still have some stuff to look forward to. A new Jesse Stone book is due out soon. And reportedly he had other books done or well in progress.

[Corrina]

There's a surplus of crime fiction writers who specialize in serial killers, pathologists, etc., but who now carries that Hammett/Marlowe/Archer torch? Robert Crais maybe? In the past several years we've lost Ed McBain, Donald Westlake, James Crumley, Tony Hillerman, and now Parker - the ranks of the Old Guard of crime writing thins.

Glad Parker got to see a Red Sox championship before he died. RIP Bob.

Robert Crais, yes.
Also Elmore Leonard.
And I think you have to throw in Sue Grafton, who's also doing first person murder mysteries in that tradition.

Not a one can replace Parker, however. I adore the Spenser books. They're part of what inspired me to write mysteries.

[Deathstroke]

Robert Crais, yes.
Also Elmore Leonard.
And I think you have to throw in Sue Grafton, who's also doing first person murder mysteries in that tradition.

Not a one can replace Parker, however. I adore the Spenser books. They're part of what inspired me to write mysteries.

I think Linda Barnes does first person stories with her Carlotta Carlyle series...also set in Boston area (mostly Cambridge).

[Deathstroke]

By the way, what were some of everyone's favorite Spenser novels?

I have to go through everything, but I know two of my earlier favorites are Looking For Rachel Wallace and A Catskill Eagle.

[Subotai]

I was trying to think of my favourites as well...Early Autumn, Mortal Stakes, A Savage Place, and more recently, I enjoyed School Days and Cold Service.

[Libaax]

I havent read Parker i never knew he was Hammett tradition, i thought he was different kind of crime writer.

I can understand the feel of loss though. My fav writer is Donald Westlake, i was real sad when he died alittle over a year ago.


P.S Elmore Leonard is not a detective,PI type crime writer. He has only one series about a US Martial in 1920,1930s. The other books arent like that.

[Doc Shannara]

By the way, what were some of everyone's favorite Spenser novels?

I have to go through everything, but I know two of my earlier favorites are Looking For Rachel Wallace and A Catskill Eagle.

Man, picking my favorite Spenser novels is as impossible as choosing my favorite AC/DC songs---I love all of 'em, to one degree or another.

About 3 years ago, I reread every book Parker had written up to that point. Took me a few months and it was probably the most fun I ever had sitting on my ass.

Dude could always make me laugh out loud. Not just chuckle or snicker, but full on gagging-on-my-coffee, nostrils-launching-snot-rockets belly laughs.

I'll tell ya, I was bummed when Crumley and McBain and Hillerman and Westlake died. But this is even worse. Infinitely worse. I honestly feel like I've lost a friend.

[Calamas]

Every time someone mentions Parker, I find myself conflicted. Even a week after his death. When I first saw the news I felt the same kick in the gut Deathstroke describes. It was so completely unexpected. Yet, although I still read him religiously, I also fall on the other side of Subotai’s “out of vogue.” To some extent, anyway.

I’ll try to explain.

I draw the line separating Parker’s work at the same place he did, although admittedly with a vastly different conclusion: Poodle Springs. When asked to complete Raymond Chandler’s unfinished novel, Parker decided that since Chandler never plotted, he would approach Phil Marlowe from the same place. Parker made it up as he went. To my point of view the results were disastrous.

(And in this case I’m talking about the novel itself, though I do have issues with taking one of literature’s most iconic detectives and giving him a case that solves itself. Yet, in all fairness, I did find Parker’s second go with Marlowe, Perchance to Dream, considerably more satisfying.)

But Parker, who had plotted all his novels to that point, found the experience liberating. He felt the novel came out fuller and more dense. Unfortunately, there is an inherent drawback to working this way. Your endings can turn out to be fairly thin. The most prolific proponent of this style of storytelling is Stephen King and it is generally agreed that it is his biggest (and IMO only) weakness. His novels tend to peter out, or worse conclude before he has wrapped up all the elements of his story, leaving addendums that feel more like a sequel rather than providing a sense of closure.

In the case of a detective story, we get Poodle Springs again and again; cases that solve themselves. Essentially Spenser and Hawk looking at each other, both shrugging, and one of them saying, “There’s no one else left.” Or them letting the guilty party get away with it, in reality because the author could not figure out a way to prove the case. (Though I will concede that it was appropriate to the story in Paper Doll.) The worst example of this was Hugger Mugger, where the best Parker could do was have a character swear he would spend the rest of his life attempting to prove the guilt of the culprit as she walked out the door.

I divide authors into three categories: those you read for the trip; those you read for the destination; and those who deliver both. Parker was once of the last category. Post-Chandler, he moved to the first.

(And again, in all honesty, I consider All Out Yesterdays to be his best. It was written post-Poodle Springs.)

But what made him still worth the trip is that his strength continually got stronger. He had the remarkable ability to simultaneously weave moral dilemma, emotional entanglement and psychological complexity into the fabric of his stories. The layers were endlessly fascinating.

There’s no denying (except by those detractors who refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of his work at all) that his emergence saved the detective novel, if not extinction, then at least from becoming a quaint reflection of a bygone genre. Yet I have always wondered what would have evolved if Poodle Springs, Parker’s professional watershed, had never happened. Could his work have been even greater? Hence the duel sense of loss. His death today, which will soon sever my annual meetings Spenser, Jesse, Sunny, and all their friends and family; and the abrupt change to the texture of Parker’s work twenty years ago, which has lingered in the back of mind even as I have travelled forward in his company.

Conflicted, yes. But loss is still loss, and I will miss the man and his work.

[Libaax]

Where would be a good place to start him ? The first Spenser book or another book of his ?

I was planning to read him since i have heard his name often. Every other crime fan assuming i had read Spenser and co.

[Deathstroke]

If you are going to read the Spenser novels, you should start from the beginning.

[Calamas]

While I agree with starting from the beginning--it’s my personal preference--it’s not completely necessary with Spenser, as long as you understand that Parker introduces his regulars slowly. His friends on police force, Quirk and Belson, debut with Spenser in The Godwulf Manuscript. Susan Silverman, his love, arrives with God Save the Child (#2). We meet Hawk for the first time in Promised Land (#4). After that the status quo is established. There are other players important to Spenser’s life but those are the ones important to the series. You should avoid both Valediction and A Catskill Eagle until you are familiar with Susan and Hawk or the impact of those stories may be lost on you. If you find Spenser to your liking you should also put off Potshot, which brings together various tough guys he has met over the years. Its charm lies in the contrasting morality of these characters, the subtleties of which may be lost without previous introductions.

My favorite is Mortal Stakes (#3). It is the first time Spenser’s personal code--as well as that of a major character in this story--fails to see him through a crisis.

But you almost always benefit by reading a series in order.

[Captain Smith]

Just finished Sixkill. I love Spenser but this book (one of the last) was a touch of a disappointment. The reviews in general were good but I respectfully disagree.

The precipitating event is interesting but much of the book is dialog between Spenser, Susan and Zebulon Sixkill full of quips and praise of Spenser as a moral and fighting superman. The plot seemed tangential to the jabber.

Got wearing after awhile. In fact, the fighting scenes and strategies were pretty stupid if you actually know about this kind of thing. Some techy mistakes about firearms and police response.

Someone who is truly competent and shut up would have killed old Spenser quite easily.

Too bad. I see there is a new Jesse Stone by someone else.