Another Robert Parker western to come

Entertainment Weekly have revealed that author Robert B. Parker was working on a Spenser novel when he passed away at his desk earlier this week.


The death of crime-genre master Robert B. Parker caught everyone by surprise, including Helen Brann, his agent of 37 years. “It was a complete shock to all of us,” Brann told EW. “His wife, Joan, had breakfast with him [Monday] morning, went out for her walk, came back an hour later, and he was sitting at his writing desk, dead.”

According to Brann, Parker was 30-40 pages into a new novel featuring Spenser, his iconic Boston-based PI, when he suffered what appears to be a fatal heart attack. However, due to his notorious prolific writing habit, there is substantial Parker material still to be published. According to Chris Pepe, his longtime editor at Putnam, there are two books set for release early this year (Split Image, a mystery featuring Jesse Stone, will be out next month, while Blue-Eyed Devil, a Western, hits bookstores later this spring) as well as a couple more in the pipeline. Brann says the author’s tremendous productivity was due to his strict, Updikean writing rate of five pages a day.

“Anybody that has that kind of output, some books are better than others,” she admits. “They weren’t all at the peak of his form, but many were. And at his peak form, he couldn’t be beat. If there’s any justice in the world, he’s got to be up there with the best. With Hammett, Chandler, MacDonald, and all them.” FULL STORY

Robert B. Parker: To sleep, perchance to dream

Robert B. Parker, who is largely responsible for the rejuvenation in the 1970s of the hard-boiled genre of crime fiction, died today at his desk at his Cambridge, Mass., home, it was reported. He was 77 years old.

Although, primarily, a mystery writer, Parker has written several westerns including the bestselling Appaloosa. Parker, hugely influenced by Raymond Chandler, was responsible for bringing Chandler's unfinished Poodle Springs to completion. The book was a huge success and filmed with James Caan playing Philp Marlowe. Parker also penned a sequel to Chandler's most famous book, The Big Sleep.

But it is for his series of books featuring the laconic private eye, Spenser that he will be remembered. The series began in 1973 with The Godwulf Manuscript and continued to the present day - indeed Parker was reported to be working on a Spenser novel when he died, earlier today.

No doubt there will be many tributes posted on blogs, and website over the coming weeks. And whilst I am still fairly new to the Spenser series, I've enjoyed each and every one I've read so far and have several more in my TBR pile.. Mr Parker's westerns were superb. Mr Parker also kept a blog and, ironically the last post was titled The Blogger Returns. It was posted last May and shows Parker full of life, looking forward to future books. I guess no-one knows what's around the corner.

A great literary talent has been lost.