several titles in her smashingly successful V.I. Warshawski series didn’t sell nearly that many. The unspoken question was, where did publishers think the next Paretsky was coming from? Or the next Robert B. Parker?
I’m an optimist, however. I prefer to think that talent will find a way. It wasn’t long ago that Ace Atkins, who continues the Spenser tradition, broke into print through the auspices of an editor with vision and influence. We’re fortunate to have him in this position: Spenser needs a writer of skill and determination to uphold his standard, and we aren’t ready to let him go. The times are ripe. An unnecessary recession caused by greedy bankers and weak-willed politicians must result in a fresh and eager audience for a modern knight-errant bent on justice. And I’ve a strong feeling that Parker, a dedicated artist of passion who passed away while at work at his desk, would agree with the choice of Atkins to continue the series.
Spenser is just too big for one career to encompass.
BOB, BOSTON, AND ME
A REMEMBRANCE
| JEREMIAH HEALY |
WRITERS OF CRIME fiction tend to be cooperative—even collaborative—as opposed to competitive. When I broke into the mystery field during the mid-’80s, however, this “we all live in the same village” ethos within a profession was, quite frankly, surprising to me. An illustration: If Author A was contacted by a library to give a talk, A—as part of the village protocol—would suggest the inclusion of Authors B and C as well, usually with diversity of gender and sub-genre, so that all three authors could appeal diagonally to members of the audience who might have attended to see only one of them.
By then, I’d already experienced mini-careers as a sheriff’s officer and military police lieutenant, trial attorney and lawprofessor. Each of those vocations stressed team-first, yes, but given the fields involved, daily life became a confrontational, us-versus-them dynamic (including, even, the law professor/student one, which uses confrontation in order to meld the latter into the best advocate he or she can be). Over time, though, my reaction to our crime-writers’ village evolved from surprised to reassured, especially when a marquee author was not just willing, but actually enthusiastic, about sharing the ephemeral spotlight.
Looking back, of all my colleagues, the one who did the most for my own career was Bob Parker. And, for the record, it was always either Bob or Mr. Parker, never Robert. In addition, although many of us think of him as the iconic Robert B. Parker, I never heard the man say or saw him write his middle name, which was Brown.
• •
The first decade of our twenty-first century proved tragic in terms of losing American giants of crime fiction: Ed McBain (formally, Evan Hunter, though, by birth, Salvatore Lombino) and Dennis Lynds (a.k.a. Michael Collins), Tony Hillerman and Donald E. Westlake (a.k.a. Richard Stark), James Crumley and Mickey Spillane, William G. Tapply and Stuart M. Kaminsky.
And, so suddenly on January 18, 2010, the giant I knew best: Robert B. Parker, who set most of his many Spenser novels in and around our shared city of Boston.
Appropriately, there have been numerous obituaries published and posted since Bob’s death. And by age seventy-seven, he’d certainly excelled in many spheres: Army service in Korea; marriage to the love of his life, Joan; the fathering of two sons, David and Daniel; and, lastly, becoming—and even more difficult, remaining—a bestselling crime author.
I first discovered his novels in the winter of 1978 while frantically shopping at the Walden’s Books in Boston’s Center Plaza for paperbacks to read on the planes (four of them, each way) that would take my then-to-be-bride and me to and from the then-remote island of Bonaire, off the coast of Venezuela, for our honeymoon. Prior to that day in the Walden’s, I’d certainly enjoyed the occasional mystery, but I’d never heard of Mr.
I’m an optimist, however. I prefer to think that talent will find a way. It wasn’t long ago that Ace Atkins, who continues the Spenser tradition, broke into print through the auspices of an editor with vision and influence. We’re fortunate to have him in this position: Spenser needs a writer of skill and determination to uphold his standard, and we aren’t ready to let him go. The times are ripe. An unnecessary recession caused by greedy bankers and weak-willed politicians must result in a fresh and eager audience for a modern knight-errant bent on justice. And I’ve a strong feeling that Parker, a dedicated artist of passion who passed away while at work at his desk, would agree with the choice of Atkins to continue the series.
Spenser is just too big for one career to encompass.
BOB, BOSTON, AND ME
A REMEMBRANCE
| JEREMIAH HEALY |
WRITERS OF CRIME fiction tend to be cooperative—even collaborative—as opposed to competitive. When I broke into the mystery field during the mid-’80s, however, this “we all live in the same village” ethos within a profession was, quite frankly, surprising to me. An illustration: If Author A was contacted by a library to give a talk, A—as part of the village protocol—would suggest the inclusion of Authors B and C as well, usually with diversity of gender and sub-genre, so that all three authors could appeal diagonally to members of the audience who might have attended to see only one of them.
By then, I’d already experienced mini-careers as a sheriff’s officer and military police lieutenant, trial attorney and lawprofessor. Each of those vocations stressed team-first, yes, but given the fields involved, daily life became a confrontational, us-versus-them dynamic (including, even, the law professor/student one, which uses confrontation in order to meld the latter into the best advocate he or she can be). Over time, though, my reaction to our crime-writers’ village evolved from surprised to reassured, especially when a marquee author was not just willing, but actually enthusiastic, about sharing the ephemeral spotlight.
Looking back, of all my colleagues, the one who did the most for my own career was Bob Parker. And, for the record, it was always either Bob or Mr. Parker, never Robert. In addition, although many of us think of him as the iconic Robert B. Parker, I never heard the man say or saw him write his middle name, which was Brown.
• •
The first decade of our twenty-first century proved tragic in terms of losing American giants of crime fiction: Ed McBain (formally, Evan Hunter, though, by birth, Salvatore Lombino) and Dennis Lynds (a.k.a. Michael Collins), Tony Hillerman and Donald E. Westlake (a.k.a. Richard Stark), James Crumley and Mickey Spillane, William G. Tapply and Stuart M. Kaminsky.
And, so suddenly on January 18, 2010, the giant I knew best: Robert B. Parker, who set most of his many Spenser novels in and around our shared city of Boston.
Appropriately, there have been numerous obituaries published and posted since Bob’s death. And by age seventy-seven, he’d certainly excelled in many spheres: Army service in Korea; marriage to the love of his life, Joan; the fathering of two sons, David and Daniel; and, lastly, becoming—and even more difficult, remaining—a bestselling crime author.
I first discovered his novels in the winter of 1978 while frantically shopping at the Walden’s Books in Boston’s Center Plaza for paperbacks to read on the planes (four of them, each way) that would take my then-to-be-bride and me to and from the then-remote island of Bonaire, off the coast of Venezuela, for our honeymoon. Prior to that day in the Walden’s, I’d certainly enjoyed the occasional mystery, but I’d never heard of Mr.
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