I was just thinking of him earlier today or yesterday, about how he finished Poodle Springs.
I have enjoyed most of what I’ve read. Literature they might not be, but something to entertain is all I need sometimes.
So with Dominic Dunne passing a few months ago, that’s two authors I read a lot now gone.
Aww, crap. I hadn’t heard he died. My wife just told me and I did two things immediately. Called my dad, who shared my enjoyment of Parker’s books; and looked for the SDMB thread. I feel like I’ve been reading Spenser all my life. I haven’t read the latest one, so I have that, at least. R.I.P.
Oh man. That is a real shame. Died at his desk, apparently? That’s hardcore – probably the way he’d want to be remembered.
I loved the Spenser books. It was the first “live” / still active mystery series I ever read. Past Pale Kings and Princes I thought they got too predictable, and Susan never failed to annoy me with her smug, withholding pseudo-psycho-pop drivel, and so I eventually stopped. (I think my last one was, uh, the one where he went to Las Vegas.) But bitching aside, those earlier books were sharp, fun, and as said before… very comforting. And dang did they make me wish I liked beer! The guy sure could describe the hell out of a meal.
Parker made an interesting choice in having the characters age in roughly real time. I could never deal with Paul being 37, because of how old that meant Spenser would be and still being the roughest, toughest son-of-a-bitch (aside from Hawk, natch). How was Spenser’s age handled in the latest books?
RIP, Mr. Parker. Thanks for countless hours of entertainment.
Robert B. Parker was first celebrity that I ever met. He came in to guest lecture a detective fiction class that I took in college. He talked just like Spenser does in the books. There was a typical know-it-all kid in my class who Parker crushed ruthlessly, and with great humor.
Spenser books were page turners, and not great literature, but one thing that I always loved about them is that Parker really know how to use words. His writing never sounded like it came from a thesaurus: instead, he wrote like a person who read extensively and knew what words mean and where to put them.
Parker will be missed. He’s one of the few authors that had the courage to allow his characters to age. Spenser often referred to events in early books and would say 20 or 25 years ago. Parker and Spenser aged together.
I’ll miss the books. I’d really gotten hooked on his new police chief character (Jesse).
Well, at least he was healthy and mentally sharp right up to the end.
It seems superfluous now, but I really, really wanted one book where Spenser and Jesse Stone teamed up on a case.
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/robert-b-parker-mystery-writer-has-died-at-77/
Are you sure? I haven’t read any Spenser books in some years, but it always seemed as if Parker was following Rex Stout’s lead, and NOT letting anyone age.
This made for some silliness and implausibilities at times. Spenser would tell us how he’d once fought Jersey Joe Walcottt, which would mean Spenser had to be 70! Then geriatric Spenser would beat the snot out of some young thug without working up a sweat.
Well, the aging wasn’t consistent. 
But, Spenser would remark that he met Susan 25 years ago. Susan was introduced in an early book around 1977. That’s fairly close to real time.
I always thought Spenser was in his late thirties in the early books. Getting close to sixty in his last books. Parker never gave exact ages.
The references to Korea never made sense. That would have made Spenser at least 45 in the 1970’s books. I blew it off to artistic license.
You’re kidding me. No. I didn’t hear this until reading it now.
This is really sad. I loved the Spenser books. Like many others, not so much the last 10 years or so, but, hell. I loved the smart alec dialogue, and I even liked all the damned cooking. I even liked “Love and Glory” an awful lot.
He looked like a mountain, that man, so big and tough. Can’t believe it. Jeez.
Agreed. I always wondered if he was a lifetime weight lifter like Spenser. He definitely looked like he could bench press 200 lbs easily.
I love the books, watched Spenser: For Hire every week when I was young. In fact I just re-read some of the early books a few months ago. He’ll be missed.
First George MacDonald Fraser, then Donald Westlake, and now Robert Parker. I am outliving all my favorite authors.
I wish I could express my feelings with a witty, sarcastic, ironic, well-placed jab at life’s little vagaries.
But i ain’t Spenser.
Rest in peace Mr. Parker.
Actually, I think the problem with the later Spenser problems is that he wasn’t feeling his age. The stories’ downhill trend began with Parker deciding to keep Spenser, Susan, & Hawk perpetually in their mid to late 40s. For one thing, that made Paul Giacomin’s existence very inconvenient.
Making Susan the perfect girlfriend was also an error, I would say. When she is first introduced, Spenser himself says that she is handsome rather than beautiful, and it’s her personality that gets his attention. It’s clear that he chooses her over Brenda Loring (he is dating both of them through Mortal Stakes, the third novel of the series) for reasons other than physical beauty. But Susan’s also commitment-phobic, and that (among her other flaws) made early Susan more real. But in the last ten years or so, he’s presented her as an uber-babe in the eyes of all who see her, and that, I think, was a weakness.
Of the more recent books, I think one of the strongest was the one with Susan’s ex-husband, Sudden Mischief, on which Susan’s character flaws were much more on display.
Actually, I think that is almost exactly the way our favorite gumshoe would have phrased it. Well–he would have said that he wasn’t Joe Dimaggio.
Damn.
Parker was a master at his chosen profession. That man could write and he told a good story.
I guess we’ll never know if Spenser and Susan ever get married or if Jesse finally gets the nads to kick Jen to the curb. And yet…somehow, that’s fitting.
Thanks, Mr. Parker. You are up there with John D. MacDonald - people will read your stories for long decades after your death.
I can’t imagine Susan and Spenser getting married in a church–though I’m sure that they have signed papers giving each durable and medical power of attorney for the other, along with making each other inheritors of their estates. (Assuming they aren’t joint tenants with rights ov survivorship on the important stuff anyway.)
The estate of Raymond Chandler asked Parker to finish the last Philip Marlowe novel. Chandler had written the first four chapters before dying. I read Poodle Springs years ago and Parker did a good job with it.
Aw shucks.
Robert B. Parker, famous novelist, and creator of the private detective character Spenser (wiht an S, like the English writer) died yesterday at his home in Massachusetts. He apparently suffered a heart attack while sitting at his desk, working on his latest manuscript.
I discovered Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels when I was a teenager. My Dad, whom I loved and admired greatly, had had a number of strokes, and had lost most of his personality and ability to express his wisdom. In Spenser, I found a model who showed me that to behave honourably is to do the right thing when it is difficult, when you don’t like it, or when you are afraid. That is was ok for men to cook well. and love literature. That it is crucial to keep your word. That loyalty to your loved ones is still necessary even when they’re being an ass. That it’s ok to try to be funny, even if those around you don’t laugh. That sometimes all your options are lousy, and you have to make the best of least bad. That it doesn’t matter so much *what *you’re good at, so long as you are good at something.
The Paul Giacomin novels were the ones that resonated most with me, because of where I was psychologically at the time. I like to think that what Spenser tauight Paul, my Dad would have taught me in time, had he not been ill.
In terms of writing, I think I liked Mortal Stakes, Valediction, and The Widening Gyre best.
I’m a better man today for having read them, even if he was coasting by the end. My only regret is that I never did write him to say this like I kept on meaning to…
Thanks Mr. Parker, may you have a window seat at the Ritz bar in the sky, with an endless supply of beer nuts.