Rest in Peace, Robert B. Parker
I was so busy over the last two days and so caught up with the news from Haiti, that I didn’t get to the obit section of the paper as I usually do. So I completely missed the sad news about my very favorite author dying at his desk on Monday morning. Apparently, he died while he was doing what he loved. He was writing another Spenser book.
I read lots of obits about him on line, and the best thing I read was that he was just a great guy to be around. Funny, a great cook, totally in love with his wife, and very similar to “Spen-suh.” As the ew.com article said, perhaps he’s sitting at the heavenly writer’s round table, with the likes of Hammet, Chandler and MacDonald. He’s certainly earned his place among the most prolific and great detective novelists around.
This is what I posted on ew.com:
I too gasped in utter shock when I heard about the death of my favorite author. Like so many of the comments posted, I too feel like I am losing someone who has been part of my life for the past 25 years — literally half my life. I have read every Spenser book, as well as the Sunny Randall & Jesse Stone series. He was indeed a master storyteller, and a master dialogue writer.
His heroes are tough on the outside, a mess on the inside. He showed us the dark side of his characters, whether they were paid assassins, recovering alcoholics or vulnerable PIs. How I will miss new cases for Spenser, his cooking, his love of Pearl, the Wonder Dog, his left jabs, right hooks and all his cool moves. But most of all I will miss that wise-ass character who could talk his way out of a paper bag. I’ll miss Hawk and Rita, and even his ever so efficient Susan. Parker wrote some of the sexiest, most romantic scenes without ever getting graphic. He knew how to feed the reader’s imagination. He is the last of that gentlemanly breed of writers we will likely never see again.
My deepest condolences to his wife Joan, to whom he lovingly dedicated each book, to his children and extended family. His stories, and his memory, will live on, and I know I will treasure them.
Thank you, Mr. Parker, for so many great days and nights of reading bliss with some of the coolest characters around.
with Pearl, the Wonder Dog
Listen to this haunting version of
“Moon River” sung by Parker and his son, Dan:
Moon River sung by Robert Parker and his son Dan Parker
