The crime novelist biz if full of twists and  turns, taking you across the paths of people you otherwise would never meet. One twist has been sharing a name with Susan Boyle’s brother Gerry (I’m sure we’re related. Would you be having any family in County Kerry, now Ger?) Anyway, being Gerry Boyle led to “meeting” Stevie MacDonald and his bros and mate in The Purple Doves, a rock band in Greenock, Scotland, outside Glasgow. Unlike my cuz Gerry Boyle, I can’t sign Stevie and the boys to a record deal. But as someone who has listened to rock for most of 40 years, sometimes at very high volume, I can point you to their MySpace page, the tunes up there. They remind me a little of the Kinks, sometimes the Clash. It’s massive, boys. Makes me reach for the guitar in the corner of the study, plug it into the amp, whale a bit. Check ‘em out. The Purple Doves. Tell ‘em Gerry sent yis.

Now back to the world of crime writing.

The news was shocking, almost unthinkable. Robert B. Parker, the master of the modern detective novel, had died. Parker, who wrote novels so dependably that publication of a new Spenser was as inevitable as the seasons in New England, had passed away in the most fitting place possible: his writing desk.

Now crime novelists are acknowledging that Bob Parker kicked open the door and we all followed him through. In the 1970s, he was a devotee of Raymond Chandler, who had been shoved by most of the reading world into a dusty storage closet. Parker was an unabashed fan and when he created Spenser, he not only paid homage to Chandler but refined the genre in the most captivating way. Dialogue that sang, descriptive phrases that were as spare and concise as the jazz he loved. When I picked up The Godwulf Manuscript, I knew I couldn’t go back.

I was a cub reporter when we met the first time. Parker was at Colby College, our alma mater, doing a speaking gig. I sat in the audience and mustered the courage to ask him a question. “If one has written a mystery novel, what is the next step?” I said.

He saw through my smokescreen, I’m sure, but he offered his advice, which I remember and have passed on myself. “Don’t show it to your mother,” he said. “Don’t show it to your girlfriend. Get it into the hands of someone who can tell you whether it’s publishable.”

So I did. The book was called Deadline and I gave it to a small regional press in Maine. They liked it, published it, and afterward I went to Parker again. I had written a sequel and I wanted to know how to find a literary agent. I wrote Parker and he wrote back. I’m sure I still have his note, which, like his prose, was spare but complete. “Send your book to my agent, Helen Brann. Tell her I sent you. Good luck.”

I did and Helen Brann took me on as a client. Doors opened and my tenth novel will be published this spring.

Along the way, I had only a few glancing interactions with Bob Parker. I went to dinner with him once. I would hear news of him from Helen. One time she called to say Bob had supplied a blurb for my McMorrow novels. I know it by heart. “Tense, convincing, and gracefully told. Gerry Boyle is the genuine article.” That blurb is on the jacket of my next book, the ninth McMorrow. It meant a lot way back when. It carries a different meaning now.

Bob Parker was a good guy to help me out when I was starting out. In a modest way, I’ve tried to do the same for aspiring writers. But what I admired most about him was that he was secure in his place as a writer. He knew what he did well and he practiced his craft for a half-century. He wrote most days, all day, devoting himself to his work. He published more than 50 books—three crime series, westerns, young adult novels—and in them you will be hard-pressed to find a word out of place. He wrote by example. He was the consummate professional.

When the last Spenser is published (of course, there was another  in the pipeline) it will be the end of an era. The rest of us will continue on but there’s nobody I know of writing now that will take Parker’s place. He set the bar high early on and he never looked back.

As I write this, somewhere, just to my right, he (or she) is sleeping. It’s 5:15 a.m. and he’s been sleeping in lately. Last night he didn’t get home until almost five, after dark at this time of year. I heard the rattle. Then the scratching. Then the pitter patter of little feet. He settled in quickly and in no time as curled up, sound asleep.

I want him gone.

He’s a red squirrel, and he’s taken up residence in the ceiling of my study. The study is in the rear of the ell of our 1820s house and his entrance, I believe, is near the peak of the gable end, just above the hook for a bird feeder. He hasn’t bothered with the feeders; the woods behind the house bore a bumper crop of ash seeds and acorns this fall. He feeds during the day, comes in and sleeps it off. But when he’s not sleeping, he’s chewing beams, sprinting down paths between the ceiling joists, scratching loud enough to wake people sleeping in the bedrooms below.Worst of all, he may be chewing electrical wiring.

Time for him to go.

Plan A: I have a Havahart trap. That will go out by the birdfeeders, in hopes that I catch the right red squirrel. I’ll probably just have to catch them all, transport them to our version of 19th century Australia. Vassalboro.

Plan B. Rat traps kill red squirrels as well. They worked when the squirrels invaded our shed a few years back, but it was messy. This battle isn’t for the faint of heart.

Plan C. The .22 rifle. Trick is to slow them down enough (getting a bag of squirrels for dinner in the olden days wasn’t as easy as it sounds). If I can get him to come to the feeders, there’s a clean shot from my study window. As in most wars, it’s nothing personal, as my fictional soldier friend Clair would say. One of us is just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I continue to get mail for impresario Gerry Boyle, brother of Susan Boyle, the endearing Scottish songstress. Gerry has a record label and he does get some interesting notes, like the one that came from New Zealand earlier this week and began: “Hi Gerry, You must be proud of Susan’s success.”

Well, of course I am. Who isn’t? Living with her cat and singing in the church choir and all of a sudden she’s vaulted to fame and maybe even to fortune. But this letter, unlike most of them, wasn’t pitching a rock band. David was offering a special programme that he said would help Susan overcome her panic attacks. David said it worked for him; he hasn’t had an attack in 21 years. He said he expected nothing whatsoever in return. He also said he respected Susan’s privacy. Nice guy, David. I haven’t had a panic attack myself but it made me almost want to write back and get the CD, just in case.

And I will, write back that is. I’ll explain to David Down Under that I’m Gerry Boyle the crime writer. And I’m from A Place Called Maine, which happens to be the title of a wonderful book that I was lucky enough to stow away in.

I don’t usually plug my work so baldly (well, maybe I do, but not this work). This is an anthology published last year. I tell people it was my one chance to be in the same book with E.B. White so when Wesley McNair called and offered a slot, I grabbed it like a winning lottery ticket. After some mulling, I wrote about a scrappy little place called Bellevue Street in the town of Winslow, where the view pretty much sums up why I live in this part of Maine.

But then the book arrived. I started reading and I didn’t stop. It was one wonderful essay after another, (I skipped mine, having already read it). E.B. White and Henry Beston. Rachel Carson and Carolyn Chute. Elaine Ford and Richard Ford. Richard Russo and Monica Wood. Wesley McNair and Cathie Pelletier. And a bunch of others, a couple of dozen all told. Some are long dead. Some I’ve had lunch with, and will again. All told remarkable stories about what makes Maine special to them. Geoffrey Wolff sailed into a blinding fog. Bill Roorbach was mired with worm diggers. Monica Wood wrote about being a child in Mexico, Maine. One excursion after another, all different, all transporting.

So that’s my plug. Here’s the link to the book. Like David with his anti-panic program, I don’t make a penny from it (I sold my essay outright, and, truth be told, would have written it for free.). But I encourage you to check it out. It’s a remarkable collection that truly is greater than the sum of its parts. I’m almost as proud of it as I am of Susan’s success.