On Monday, Janaury 18, 2010 Robert B. Parker joined Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, Dashiell Hammett and Mickey Spillane in that great heavenly mystery writer’s group. A massive heart attack struck Robert Parker down while seated at his desk working on his latest novel. This week’s issue of The Culture Alliance’s Fiction Friday newsletter focused on Mr. Parker’s work. Tom Nolan, editor of Ross Macdonald’s The Archer Files: The Complete Short Stories of Lew Archer, Private Investigator, notes that Parker “revivified the P.I. genre” building upon aspects of the genre’s greats: he bantering dialogue of Raymond Chandler, the concern for young people expressed by Ross Macdonald, the swift action of Dashiell Hammett, even the violence of Mickey Spillane. Nolan continues: He wrote dialogue that at once informed, amused and gave a sense of character; and he conjured characters a reader wanted to spend more time with—especially Spenser, a fixed point in a footloose world, take him or leave him. A pragmatist whose ethics were situational. A tough and decent type who did what needed to be done in the service of a moral cause, affirming the worth of the individual regardless of race, sexual orientation, social status, age or occupation. He

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