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.
In PORT CITY SHAKEDOWN, the first Brandon Blake novel, Brandon gets a full dose of bad guys. A brawl in a funeral home introduces him to Joel Fuller, a sociopathic hustler. Fuller is fresh out of jail and determined to take Brandon out—after Fuller and his sidekick Kelvin shake him down.
Rocky isn’t a tough guy. He’s a skinny little kid with crooked glasses, and he shouldn’t be homeless in Portland, Maine. When McMorrow and Roxanne pluck him from under the stomping feet of a gang of street kids, Rocky latches onto McMorrow–and drags him into a world of murder, both old and new. Why is McMorrow protecting Rocky? The cops want to know. Why is Rocky on the run? McMorrow wants to know. Why does death follow in Rocky’s wake? Jack and Roxanne need to find out before they’re added to the list. 
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