Robert B. Parker, wrote 'Spenser' series, dead at 77

BOSTON - Robert B. Parker, the blunt crime novelist who helped revive and modernize the hard-boiled genre and branded a tough guy of his own through his Spenser series, has died. He was 77.

The cause of death was unclear. An ambulance was sent to Parker's home in Cambridge, Mass., Monday after reports of a sudden death, said Alexa Manocchio, spokeswoman for the Cambridge police.

Parker's longtime agent, Helen Brann, said Parker's wife, Joan, called her Monday after finding him dead at his desk.

"They had had breakfast together Monday, and he was perfectly fine," Brann said. "She went out to do her running and when she came back about an hour later, he was dead. We were in a complete state of shock and still cannot quite believe it."

Parker wrote more than 50 novels, including 37 featuring Boston private eye Spenser, whose first name was a mystery and, like Parker, was a Korean War veteran.

"I first got into him when I was a student and me and my friends heard about this writer who had these really cool books about a detective in Boston," said author Dennis Lehane. "He taught me how to be funny on the page. He taught me how to be succinct. He taught me how to give voice to that wonderfully jaded Boston sarcasm that came out in his books."

The character was the basis for the 1980s TV series "Spenser: For Hire," starring Robert Urich. Parker later said the only part of the show he liked was the residual checks.

Parker admired Raymond Chandler and other classic crime writers and helped revive their cool, clipped style in the first Spenser novel, "The Godwulf Manuscript," in 1973. Parker won two Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America and a Grand Master Edgar in 2002 for lifetime achievement.

A new novel in his Jesse Stone series, "Split Image," is due out next month, and several other books including Spenser novels are "in the pipeline," said Chris Pepe, his editor at G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Parker told the AP in 1996 that he liked to write 10 pages a day, finish a book without revision and then turn over the manuscript to his wife.

The Springfield, Mass., native received a PhD in English from Boston University, where his dissertation was on Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Admirers also credit Parker with updating the genre. Unlike Philip Marlowe and other classic detective characters, Spenser was not a confirmed loner, but in a solid relationship. Parker's stories also included blacks, Latinos and gays.

Brann said a private ceremony will take place this week, and that a public memorial is planned for mid-February in Boston.