'Spenser' biographer Robert Parker dies at age 77

BOSTON – Robert B. Parker, the edgeless and admired abomination biographer who helped animate and improve the above brand and branded a boxy guy of his own through his "Spenser" series, has died. He was 77.

The account of afterlife was unclear. An ambulance was beatific to Parker's home in Cambridge on Monday morning afterwards letters of a abrupt death, said Alexa Manocchio, backer for the Cambridge badge department.

Parker's longtime agent, Helen Brann, said that the author's widow, Joan, alleged her Monday appropriate afterwards award him asleep at his desk.

"They had had breakfast calm Monday, and he was altogether fine," Brann said. "She went out to do her active and aback she came aback about an hour later, he was dead. We were in a complete accompaniment of shock and still cannot absolutely accept it."

Prolific to the end, Parker wrote added than 50 novels, including 37 featuring Boston clandestine eye Spenser. The character's aboriginal name was a mystery, with his aftermost name absolutely spelled with an "s" in the middle, not a "c."

"I aboriginal got into him aback I was a apprentice and me and my accompany heard about this biographer who had these absolutely air-conditioned books about a detective in Boston. You absolutely had to seek them out at first," said Dennis Lehane, columnist of "Mystic River" and added Boston-based novels.

"He accomplished me how to be funny on the page. He accomplished me how to be succinct. He accomplished me how to accord articulation to that affably blah Boston acrimony that came out in his books. I bethink cogent Bob that the aboriginal affiliate of my aboriginal book (`A Drink Before the War') was so faux Parker he should accept been suing me."

The appearance was the base for the 1980s TV alternation "Spenser: For Hire," starring Robert Urich. Parker afterwards said the alone affair he admired about the affairs was the balance checks.

Parker admired Raymond Chandler and added archetypal abomination writers and helped accompany aback their cool, abrupt appearance in the aboriginal "Spenser" novel, "The Godwulf Manuscript," from 1973. Within a few years, with "Looking for Rachel Wallace" and "Early Autumn," he was acclaimed as a adept in his own right.

"Hard-boiled detective fiction was about asleep in the aboriginal '70s. It was advised about a building thing," said Ace Atkins, columnist of "Devil's Garden," "Wicked City" and several added novels. "When Parker brought out Spenser, it reinvigorated the genre. ... I wouldn't accept a job now afterwards Robert Parker."

Robert Crais, accepted for his Elvis Cole/Joe Pike novels, said Parker "opened the doors for anybody who came after."

"For a continued time, the American detective brand was authentic by the big three: Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald. I would say Robert Parker is the fourth," Crais said.

Parker additionally was accepted for his Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone series. His added books included a atypical aggressive by the activity of Jackie Robinson, "Double Play"; the Westerns "Appaloosa," "Resolution" and "Brimstone"; and "Perchance to Dream," a aftereffect to Chandler's "The Big Sleep."

Parker won two Edgar Awards from the Abstruseness Writers of America and a Grand Adept Edgar in 2002 for lifetime achievement. A new Jesse Stone novel, "Split Image," is appointed to appear out abutting month, and several added books, including some Spenser novels, are "in the pipeline," according to Chris Pepe, his editor at G.P. Putnam's Sons, an banner of Penguin Group.

More than 4 actor copies of Parker's books accept awash worldwide, Brann, his agent, said.

In a 1996 account with The Associated Press, Parker acclaimed several similarities amid himself and Spenser. They both accepted acceptable food; Spenser dined at some of Parker's admired restaurants. Both admired baseball and jazz. Both were veterans of the Korean War. Both could bandy a bite — or atomic had the desire.

"He does a abundant abounding things I don't believe," Parker said. "I don't apperceive if he's added agitated that I am. But he's added accommodating to achieve it than I am. Let's aloof say we're not dissimilar."

Parker said he admired to address 10 pages a day, accomplishment a book afterwards afterlight and again about-face over the arrangement to his wife. He alone abstruse how the chance would about-face out by autograph it, authoritative the atypical a affectionate of alongside chance for columnist and character.

A built-in of Springfield, Mass., Parker advised as an undergraduate at Colby College and accustomed a Ph.D. in English from Boston University, area his argument was on Hammett and Chandler, whom he fabricated no abstruse of imitating. He was teaching at Northeastern University aback he created Spenser, celebratory afterwards that he was aggressive in allotment because Chandler was asleep and he absent his acclaimed detective, Philip Marlowe.

Admirers acclaim Parker with not alone anniversary the above style, but additionally with afterlight it. Unlike Marlowe and added archetypal characters, Spenser was not a accepted loner, but in a solid relationship. Parker's belief additionally included blacks, Latinos and gays.

"He opened the aperture to women as readers of above detective fiction," Crais said. "He set the date and fabricated a banal admirers for authors like Sue Grafton and Sara Paretsky."

Brann said that a clandestine commemoration will booty abode this week, and that a accessible canonizing is planned for mid-February in Boston.

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AP National Biographer Hillel Italie in New York contributed to this report.