This Spenser thing is growing out of proportion. No need for
lengthy discussions to see that the RB Parker of today is way
way distant from the earlier writer. Only in the wrong
direction. His Spenser books are padded now with "real
private life facts" leading to nowhere and having nothing to
do with the first 5 or 6 brilliant novels of the Spenser
series. But I'm sure the padding must appeal to the part of
the American readership not really interested by HB/Noir etc.
And this represents more (far more) people in the USA than
those who are. I'm sure it is also part of the problem:
readership at any costs.
In previous discussions here (and David White seems to
remember some) I was told that I had no right to despise
Parker as he was a very professional writer. Right! He is.
Most of the problem comes from that. As I already said: since
some time now he writes very professionally... totally
uninteresting Spenser novels.
Do not forget his failure to bring up 'Poodle Spring'
... (but I was more shocked by his perverted foreword about
Chandler than by the pedestrian novel he gave there). This
must have been however a very good marketing coup, once
more.
So obviously Parker choose to become a kind of 'best seller'
novelist. Good for him. The only regret I have is that we
lost a very good, successful and promizing writer of the
crime/HB genre. All things he was at the time of the first
5/6 novels.
As for the Parker of today, just scrap good and promizing,
and we are left only with : successful. So I suggest that
Parker Part II does not belong anymore to the kind of lit we
discuss here, as doesn't any other best-seller specialist.
Otherwise, it would not be fair to very successful ones such
as: Grisham, Crighton, Ludlum et al.
E.Borgers Hard-Boiled Mysteries http://www.geocities.com/Athens
6384
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