Robert B. Parker (US crime writer) Add a review

Robert Brown Parker (September 17, 1932 – January 18, 2010) was an American writer, primarily of fiction within the mystery/detective genre. His most famous works include the 40 novels written about the fictional private detective Spenser. In the mid-1980s, based on the character of detective Spenser, ABC television network developed the television series Spenser: For Hire. A series of TV movies was also produced based on the same character. His works incorporate encyclopedic knowledge of the Boston metropolitan area. The Spenser novels have been cited as reviving and changing the detective genre by critics and bestselling authors, including Robert Crais, Harlan Coben, and Dennis Lehane.

Parker also wrote nine novels featuring Jesse Stone, a Los Angeles police officer who moves to a small New England town; six novels with Sunny Randall, a female private investigator; and four Westerns starring the duo Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch. The first was Appaloosa, made into a film starring Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen. The Jesse Stone books were adapted into a series of TV films starring Tom Selleck.

Following Parker's death, authorised continuations of his works have been penned by other authors: the Spenser books were written by Ace Atkins (2012-2022) and Mike Lupica (2023-present); Jesse Stone by Michael Brandman (2011-2013), Reed Farrel Coleman (2014-2019), Lupica (2020-2022) and Christopher Farnsworth (2025-present); Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch by Robert Knott; and Sunny Randall by Lupica (2018-2020) and Alison Gaylin (2023).