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Buy the Book
Parker’s Last Case — But Not Spenser’s
The late mystery novelist Robert Parker’s final manuscript is now a book — and two living writers have signed on to continue his work. Will that ever work?
Sixkill,
by Robert B.
Parker
(G.P. Putnam’s Sons,
293 pages, $26.95)
Sixkill, a very readable Spenser novel, is Bob Parker’s last case. The Parker family and mystery readers worldwide suffered an irreparable loss in January of 2010 when Parker died suddenly at his desk. Sixkill is the last of three manuscripts — two Spensers and a Jesse Stone novel — Parker left behind at his premature and much-lamented departure.
In Sixkill, Parker’s 39th Spenser novel since 1973’s The Godwulf Manuscript, Parker takes on a favorite target, Hollywood in its shallow greediness, through the character of Jumbo Nelson: fat, crass, arrogant, and capable of the crime he stands accused of. But did he do it? Boston P.I. Spenser, always a bear for the truth, must find out, even though his investigation puts him in the way of some lethal gangsters ready to kill him to protect the movie company’s valuable asset, to wit: Jumbo. Readers will learn that it’s not entirely Jumbo’s acting talent that makes him valuable.
This latest and last Parker tale is told in the spare and insistent prose with crisp and amusing dialogue that Parker fans have enjoyed for decades and other crime fiction writers have tried to imitate for the same period, usually with slightly off-plumb results. There are the acute Spenser observations on the social scene, and the usual gospel according to Parker on loyalty, friendship, responsibility, work, and the manly virtues, the sort of thing that has set his fiction apart from and well above the general run of the mystery/thriller/crime genre and helped Parker’s books sell somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 million copies.
In a seemly world this would be the time for Parker’s legions of fans to render a sad but grateful farewell to Spenser and Stone and content themselves with re-reading their favorites from Parker’s long backlist, almost all of which is still in print and available. But even though their creator has left us, there will be more literary appearances for both Spenser and Stone.
In a ghoulish business decision, clearly egged on more by MBAs than by readers, Putnam’s and the Spenser estate have arranged for these two popular characters to continue in the hands of new authors. Hollywood producer and screenwriter Michael Brandman, a long-time Parker associate and co-writer with Parker of the Jesse Stone made-for-TV movies, will continue the series based on the Paradise, Massachusetts police chief. Novelist Ace Atkins of Oxford, Mississippi, will write the stories about Boston P.I. Spenser (no first name is ever given).
Book publishing is not going through the best of times just now. So it’s not surprising that Putnam’s would be reluctant to give up the cash cows that Spenser and Stone novels have reliably been. And in a period of reduced book sales and the E-book jumble, cash cow has been defined down. But the history of writers taking over the characters of other writers is uneven at best.
Let’s see, Vince Lardo wrote the McNally series after Lawrence Sanders. With the approval of the Rex Stout estate, Robert Goldsborough wrote seven Nero Wolfe novels. There were various Ian Flemings after Fleming himself went to that big safe house in the sky. Erich Van Lustbader wrote some Bourne novels after Robert Ludlum. Uncountable writers have written Sherlock Holmes stories.
Even Parker himself got into the act, finishing Raymond Chandler’s Poodle Springs in 1989, a novel Chandler left unfinished at his death in 1959. Parker later wrote Perchance to Dream, billed as a continuation of Chandler’s dated but still readable The Big Sleep of 1939. But though Philip Marlowe was abroad in the land again under Parker’s hand in these two books, Parker’s Marlowe certainly sounded more like the lively Spenser than like Chandler’s world-weary detective.
So we’ll just have to wait and see what Atkins and Brandman come up with. I’ll certainly read their first efforts. I wish both of these guys well, but this may be a good place to invoke the cliché about hope over expectation. Many have tried to copy Parker’s deceptively simple style and reproduce his narrative energy with less than the results readers were looking for.
In Brandman’s case we already know that the last two Jesse Stone movies (yes, this is the series starring Tom Selleck as Jesse “I’m the police chief — I know everything” Stone), which are based on original scripts, are not as lively and watchable as the earlier ones based on Parker’s stories. And screen-writing isn’t always the best entré into novel-writing, a very different business.
The choice of the 40-year-old Atkins to continue the Spenser series seems downright peculiar. Atkins is a talented enough writer with 10 novels under his belt. But just how the thoroughly Southern Atkins — the Auburn graduate is from Alabama, got his journalistic experience writing for the Tampa Tribune, and now teaches journalism in Mississippi — is going to take over the voice of the thoroughly Boston wise-acre Spenser is something many, including me, are waiting to see. Most concerning is that the 1.5 of Atkins novels I’ve read have been humor-free zones, very un-Parker-like.
We won’t have to wait long to see where this is going. Atkins’ first Spenser novel comes out in the spring of 2012. Brandman’s first Stone novel, Robert B. Parker’s Killing the Blues, comes out September 13. Brandman and Atkins may strike chords with Parker’s many readers and keep the franchises rolling. Or they may fold their tents after a book or two. But none of this should distract us from appreciating Parker and making him a first-ballot inductee into the Mystery Writers Hall of Fame. In fact, to use a phrase familiar to Parker regulars, we’d be fools not to.
About the Author
Larry Thornberry is a writer in Tampa.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (15) | Leave a comment
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alice moore| 5.12.11 @ 6:52AM
Don't forget Brandon Sanderson taking over Robert Jordan's(who took over Robert Howard's Conan series) Wheel of Time series. Jordan's family dis have manuscripts.
alice moore| 5.12.11 @ 6:53AM
BTW I'm reading Sixkill. The novel is reminiscent of the Fatty Arbuckle case in the 1920s.
TURK| 5.12.11 @ 8:45AM
I am a recent devotee to Robert Parker's work. Late last year, I was browsing a used book store in Arizona when I encounterd a Parker book on the shelves (3 or 4 as I recall). The first one was a 'Jesse Stone , and having enjoyed one or more of the Tom Selleck J Stone movies; I thought I would enjoy the author's books. I did and now have 24 hardback volumes. Recently I discovered his westerns and the 2 western gunslinger versions of Spencer and his very big sidekick. When I watched APPALOOSA a year or 2 ago I was unaware it was of Parker.
If I was his family, I too would attempt the perpetuation. Whether either work, is another matter. Since I discovered Robert Parker after he was already lost to this world, I find myself down in the dumps, periodically, as I mourn his absence. His was a great talent. I look forward to the May 22 Jesse Stone!
Thanks to Thornberry for his pieces on The Spectator site.
LSinAZ| 5.12.11 @ 9:07AM
I believe my mother has every Parker novel ever written. She loves him...me, not as much.
Insofar as other authors continuing a series for the originating authors, even though G. Lucas and T. Clancy are not, thankfully, deceased, their allowing other authors to carry on the Star Wars and Jack Ryan series was a master stroke IMHO.
Bill| 5.12.11 @ 9:22AM
I first became acquainted with Robert Parker via reading the Jesse Stone novels, which were wonderful. The primary thing that made them great was the personality of Jesse Stone, and his way with the bon mot.
I also loved the Jesse Stone TV movies, and I think Tom Selleck was the ideal pick to play the character. But Tom Selleck is good at acting and is not a screenwriter, so he can only bring the words that are written for him to life according to the limits of those words. As correctly pointed out in this article, the last two Jesse Stone TV movies lack the wit and sparkle of Robert Parker's creation. I still like the Jesse Stone movies despite this, because they still evoke the true Jesse Stone for me, but it's true that the character is not the same without Parker to do the basic work in defining the character.
the permanent newbie| 5.12.11 @ 1:38PM
Possibly the most successful series continuation after the original author's death is the further adventures in Oz by Ruth Plumly Thomson - but then again, she was chosen to continue the stories by L. Frank Baum himself during his final illness. Smart move.
The most utterly useless continuation of a deceased author's work must be the endless cloning of the late V.C. Andrews. Almost thirty years, and the publisher might still be pretending to be uncovering unpublished original manuscripts (it never has credited any of the ghostwriters, AFAIK)... They're all even more unreadable than the originals.
james wilson| 5.12.11 @ 1:50PM
Nawt a chance. Wish it were otherwise.
PCC| 5.12.11 @ 2:21PM
Well, apparently it isn't a crime to treat an author's name as a "brand" capable of generating sales long after the author's demise, but having tried to read Eric van Lustbader's mangling of Robert Ludlum's legacy, maybe it ought to be.
Francis W. Porretto | 5.12.11 @ 2:48PM
Many readers will miss Robert B. Parker. My wife practically worships him. I'm not far behnid her; reading Parker taught me how to characterize without being obtrusive, and how to give dialogue a heavyweight punch.
But we who are "of a certain age" have usually found the continuation of a favorite writer's oeuvre by new hands unpalatable. That's not quite "the style is the man" territory, but there does seem to be more of any given writer in his characters and prose than one might think. Several gifted writers have attempted to continue Isaac Asimov's works, and have produced nothing of merit. Arthur C. Clarke permitted younger writers to "co-author" with him -- a thin disguise for a ghostwriter, that -- to about the same effect. And I cringe at the idea that anyone could pick up where the incomparable Jack Vance has left off.
All the same, like Mr. Thornberry, I'll give Parker's inheritors a try. But they get only one dud each.
Dee See| 5.12.11 @ 11:18PM
---Wonderful piece!
BTW, mysteries aside, lets talk about media
blackouts.
Seems as more explosions in Fukishima
go unreported in world 'EUGENICS agenda'
media ---off the charts radiation has now been
confirmed to be found in Kent England along
with radiation burns.
Now we know why David Rockefeller's been
vacationing in Chile.
ENOUGH ROPE| 5.13.11 @ 7:09AM
Whenever I finished reading a book about Spenser and Hawk, I felt sad that I had to say goodby to two rugged dispensers of justice who were witty while they outwitted the bad guys. Robert Parker's photo on the back jacket conveyed a strong man's man of rock solid values whose pose with the dog Pearl reminded me of dialogue that I had just read between Spenser and his lovely woman who owned Pearl.
As I read Spenser novels, I imagined Robert Urich as Spenser and Avery Brooks as Hawk which added panache to their written characters. Urich in his role as Spencer was loved by many women viewers in America. Urich's passing and Parker's passing are painful for their families and painful to their faithful viewers and readers who regarded them as good friends seen from afar. Though, our different degrees of sadness can be assuaged by the knowledge that we will live with them someday in eternal life and joy.
Rich Rostrom| 5.13.11 @ 1:39PM
There have been vast numbers of Holmes pastiches and homages, but AFAIK no one ever dared to write an "official" Holmes story.
The completion of the original author's unfinished manuscripts is a murky space. As noted, Parker himself did that.
Another case is the 'extension' of Dorothy Sayers' Lod Peter Wimsey opus. There was one unfinished manuscript, and now one or two semi-original novels.
The most egregious form of this is the "franchising" of a living author's name - for instance Tom Clancy, who puts his name on numerous books he didn't write.
(It could be more seemly if Clancy were to establish a publishing marque, which would more accurately his role. "Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine" was not writtten by him, nor did anyone think it was. Neither was "Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine" written by Queen. In both cases, the name was a trusted brand.)
Rod Martin| 5.14.11 @ 9:11PM
From Robert B. Parker to-- x?. Hard trail.Like going from Ruth' Chris to Arbys. Hawk, Chollo, Marcus , Morris, Teddy admirers go forth and seek first editions and enjoy the real thing. Darn it Mr Parker why didn't you provide us with Zepulon Sixkiller earlier?
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