I have been thinking about comparing Robert Parker to Raymond
Chandler. In baseball a man named Bill James founded the
'science' of sabrematics which used all relavant statistics
to evaluate a player rather than just using a the few used in
the past. That has nothing to do with literature, however, in
his book assessing the greatest all-time players James
thought of comparing them by two standards - career and peak.
So you can compare Parker to Chandler by using only both of
their first seven books for a peak, but when you compare all
their careers you have to use all their books. Since Chandler
wrote only the seven his peak and career would be the same.
When you throw in Parker's later books I think everybody on
this list would agree the his career quality would not
measure up. Mark .
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