The Broken Scarlett Sky

I was sitting at my desk contemplating a blueberry scone when an older gentleman limped into my office. He was around six feet tall but looked like he had lost a few inches since his prime. He gave off the aura of an athlete in his twilight years as he limped up to my desk favoring one leg. Almost as if he were Willie Mays fumbling around in the outfield for the Mets when he was well past it. A sad and wistful nostalgia that was palpable if you knew what you were seeing.

"You Spencer?" I like a man who comes right to the point. "That's what they tell me." "Names McGee. I want to hire you." "That's what I am here for, so you came to the right place. What do you need? Have a seat and let me know what this is all about."

He pulled back one of my client chairs and sat gingerly so he could extend his bad knee without touching the desk. You could tell it was his bad knee because it was obvious that he was favoring it as he walked.  He had a deep tan that you could only get if you were out on the water all the time or lived in a tanning parlor. Sandy hair which had gone white and an athlete's build that age and strain had weathered to the point where you could only get a fleeting glimpse of what he once had been. He reminded me of a retired athlete like Jim Brown or Dick Butkus who had been a prime physical specimen all of their life and were astonished at how their body had betrayed them.

"I live down in Florida on a houseboat in Fort Lauderdale. I'm retired but I used to do what you do now.  I didn't have a license or any paperwork. Kept it all off the books you might say.  I operated as a "salvage consultant.'" Basically, people hired me to find something they lost. I covered the expenses, and they owed me nothing if I didn't find it. But if I recovered it, they owe me half the value." "Sweet. But that's not how I operate." "I figured. I will pay your rate. I heard from some people that you are the best up here in Boston. I need you to find someone for me."

"Okay, who is it?"

"My best friend. His name is Meyer. Ludwig Meyer. He came up here for a conference at MIT and I haven't heard from him since. That was three weeks ago. His conference was supposed to be four days max. When nobody heard from him for a week, I came up here and went to his hotel to see if he was there. Sometimes he gets so involved in his work that he loses all track of the outside world. But that wasn't the case. He had checked in and was seen a couple of times, but he had never checked out. He hadn't been in his room for two weeks. It was a police matter. At least as far as the hotel is concerned.  I spoke to a cop named Frank Belson. I am sure you know him. Cheap raincoat. Smelly Italian cigars. He seemed to know what was what. He recommended I talk to you. So here I am."

"I know Frank. What did your friend do so that he had a conference at MIT? Is he a professor?"

"He was an economist. A pretty well-known one in economic circles. He had published a couple of important articles back in the day that he had monetized to support himself. Lately, he had been working on a computer algorithm that he said would be revolutionary. He said it had a predictive modality that was a game changer. I have to admit that I didn't follow it. But I know it has to have something with his disappearance." McGee leaned back in his chair with a puzzled expression. I had a feeling that doubt was a stranger to him, and he didn't like how it felt.

"Why didn't you start looking for him? You seem to have a lot on the ball. You know what to do. I am sure you have done it before so why pay me?" McGee gave me a soft smile and said, "How old do you think I am Spenser?" I looked him in the eyes and lied. "I don't know. Late sixties maybe?" "I am 87. Like Harry Callahan used to say a man has to know his limitations. Will you take the case?"

"Yes. I will. I will have a few questions. Do you want coffee? Half a scone?" "Coffee. You keep the scone."

I liked him. He let me eat my scone. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

When your favorite write croaks....what do you do!

We all of us have favorite writers. People who we eagerly await the next book to come out. It could be a series or just the general output of the author.  I have a bunch of guys I follow and get every book that comes out as soon as it is published. Robert B. Parker. Eric Flint. SM Stirling. George RR Martin. Elmore Leonard. Elmer Kelton. Robert Conroy. Harry Turtledove. Sean Chercover. George Peleconos. Dennis Lehane. Loren Estleman. And a bunch more.

Sometimes the author dies. People like John D. MacDonald. Elmore Leonard. Tom Clancy. Robert B. Parker. Then your supply is shut off. Your favorite characters will not be having any new adventures. Series are cut off in the middle of their run.

Now some authors are so popular that other people step up to continue the legacy. Sometimes it is the son or daughter of the author. When Michael Shaara the author of one of my favorite books "The Killer Angels" died his son Jeff picked up the mantle and produced some pretty good books. But more often than not there is no one to carry on the series.

That is not to say that many people don't try to use the famous characters in new stories. The most prominent example is of course Sherlock Holmes who seems to have moved into the public domain. There are innumerable pastiches using Holmes and Watson in stories by fans and authors who pay homage to the great stories first put forth by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Some are great and some are dreck. I always wanted to try my hand at that and the Inspector Lestrade letters are a nod in that direction. Maybe someday I will try.

The estate of Robert B. Parker is trying a different approach. They have several different professional authors to carry forward three of the series. The Jesse Stone novels are being written by Reed Farrell Coleman and more interestingly TV producer Michael Brandman. He is making a cottage industry of Jesse Stone has he has produced a series of TV movies staring Tom Selleck as Jesse Stone. You can catch them on Netflicks and they are pretty good although quite different than some aspects of the books.

Robert B. Parker's Westerns are being carried forward by Robert Knott. Now Parkers Westerns were always his weakest work and this has not changed with a new hand on the reins. I sympathize because I am a big Western fan and wish I could write them as effortlessly as someone like Louis Lamour or Elmer Kelton or Elmore Leonard. It is a noble effort that just doesn't quite cut it.

Finally they hit a bullseye when they got novelist Ace Atkins to pen the new Spenser novels. He is right on the mark. He captures Parkers voice without slavishly copying him. The latest Spenser novel is called "Kickback" and is about the for-profit prison systems that have sprung up to house juveniles in the Northeast. I just bought it and will read it today. Nothing is better than getting one of your favorite authors new books to read. It is not actually Robert B. Parker but it is close enough to top off my jones for hard boiled detective fiction for a while.

Now I have to wait until September for the next SM Stirling book. Waiting sucks.

An upset in the poll!

It looks like Robert B. Parker won our poll of favorite mystery or suspense writers.

I guess TV detectives are pretty popular. Who knew?

Sometimes they come back.

Yesterday we sort of took the day off and walked around the neighborhood. We stopped at a few stores to say hello and represent. You know how other people come into our store we want to stop by theirs to drop off a few schekels. It's only right.

We went to Barnes and Noble all the way up Court St and decided we were each going to get two books. Only two because we are planning to get kindles because the wife hates the idea that I have so many books lying around in stacks in the house. So we each picked out a couple of things.

The wife got one of her "Shopaholic" books by this broad Sophie Kinsella. She really enjoys her stuff so she also bought another book that was not part of the series.

I managed to snag the latest Robert B. Parker posthumously published Spencer novel called "Painted Ladies." It was a real quick read. I already finished it one day later. It was the standard plot. Spencer gets a case where his client is killed and he has to go against the grain and solve it. But the body count adds up. He kills three people in this book. When you add up all the people he has killed in the various Spencer books you are in Ted Bundy territory. Pretty unbelievable when you think about it but it is just entertaining fiction. You know like Obama' resume.

Anyhoo I enjoyed it but it is sad all the same. Since Mr. Parker has passed away earlier this year, his new books will be few and far between. Not that he will stop. Because with a genre author they always seem to find manuscripts left over that someone else will finish. Everyone from Robert E. Howard to Mickey Spillane to John D. MacDonald to Louis Lamour has someone hooked up with the estate to keep the gravy train rolling. I have no doubt that there are two or three Spencer books, a couple of Jesse Stone novels and one or two Westerns like Appaloosa left in his bibliography yet to come. So I look forward to them. I will buy them. But I wish that whoever picks up his mantle will vary the outline just a little.

But I have my doubts.

A great writer has passed.

One of my all time favorite writers has passed this week, Robert B. Parker of the Spenser, Jesse Stone, Sonny Randall and Appalosa fame.

He specialized in my two favorite brands of fiction, tough guy detective and western. I did find that he had started to repeat himself a lot in the Spenser series. Not to say that they weren't a great fast read and that I didn't buy everyone as soon as they came out. But the plots seem to always go the same way. Someone would come into Spenser's office and pose a problem. He would investigate but would pull in one of his friends who were a criminal to help. Sometimes Hawk his sidekick the black hit man. Or Vinnie Morris the Mafia hit man. Or Cholo the Mexican hit man. In one book he got together all of those guys in a sort of homage to the "Magnificent Seven." A fun read but not the most original.

I thought his Jesse Stone mysteries were more intriguing. Stone was an alcoholic police chief struggling with a wife he divorced but couldn't end it with. And he had started a dalliance with another main character in another series, Sonny Randall. So this was shaping up as a fun series to follow.

Sometimes when an author gets older a son will step in to follow in his fathers footsteps and keep the series alive. Michael Shaara's son Jeff did that with the Killer Angels series. WEB Griffin has already integrated his son into his series so he can take over. I don't know if anyone will pick up Robert Parker's mantle but I would hate for the series to end. They have been too much fun for me and too much a part of my life. I will really miss them.

To his wife Joan and his family, I extend my thoughts and prayers and may he rest in peace. He will be remembered fondly by many millions of his fans.