Robert B. Parker, 1932-2010
Robert B. Parker, the prolific Boston novelist who singlehandedly revived the hardboiled detective genre in the 1970s with his bestselling Spenser series, died at his desk yesterday, at the age of 77.
I was introduced to Spenser through the 1980s TV show Spenser: For Hire, starring the late Robert Urich as the title character and Avery Brooks as Hawk, because my dad was a fan of the show. Since then, I read most of his Spenser novels, which were always a must on my "fun reads" list. I knew this day would eventually come (he was 77, after all), but it's still always a shock when it does. Parker was always a prolific writer, juggling four different series during the last decade of his life (and unlike a certain other publishing machine who will remain nameless, he actually wrote every word of them), and he always had several books in the pipeline, so there'll hopefully still be a couple more Spenser adventures yet to come.
I was introduced to Spenser through the 1980s TV show Spenser: For Hire, starring the late Robert Urich as the title character and Avery Brooks as Hawk, because my dad was a fan of the show. Since then, I read most of his Spenser novels, which were always a must on my "fun reads" list. I knew this day would eventually come (he was 77, after all), but it's still always a shock when it does. Parker was always a prolific writer, juggling four different series during the last decade of his life (and unlike a certain other publishing machine who will remain nameless, he actually wrote every word of them), and he always had several books in the pipeline, so there'll hopefully still be a couple more Spenser adventures yet to come.