I wonder how horrified Salinger would be if he could see himself and his work being incessantly chewed-over in the conventional press and in blogs. As of five minutes ago, Yahoo and Google searches for ""J.D. Salinger" obituary", produced about 250,000 results - not all of them are relevant, but there are enough obituaries and tributes that it seems silly to pile on with yet another one. I bravely resited the impulse for almost 4 days. Now that I've given up the fight, I'll try to show the good sense and manners to keep it brief.

Robert B. Parker is dead, but Spenser is alive and well in 39 novels with a couple more yet to be published. Parker wrote other novels including the Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone series, but he will be remembered for Spenser - which ain't a bad afterlife.

Spenser first appeared in the Godwulf Manuscript in 1973. From the start he was clearly an heir to Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, with his quick wit, tough-guy attitude, and a soft heart - at least for women, children, and animals. The first book was well-plotted, but dialogue and characters were already the stars of anything Robert B. Parker wrote. As the years went by, the plots became increasingly less important while the dialogue carried the books. A number of obituary writers have judged this a flaw, but I think it was one of Parker's great strengths as a writer.

Visit our Robert B. Parker page for more about the man and his books. The bibliography is out-of-date as of this writing, but we'll get it cleaned up in the next few days. Should be fully corrected now - please let me know if you spot any mistakes.

Donald Westlake is Dead and I Don't Feel So Good Myself