Unexpected news, unexpected reaction...

[alexpgp]

I just learned that Robert B. Parker died Monday, at the age of 77.

I very nearly broke out in tears, and I have no idea why.

I first began to pay attention to Parker's work some time after Spenser: For Hire hit the television screen in syndication. I'd never seen any of the episodes (very nearly intentionally, for no particular reason). Then I read an excerpt from Promised Land published in a short-lived thing called The New Black Mask Quarterly, which I picked up at a used book store not far from Atlanta during a business trip when we lived in Jacksonville, Florida.

I guess the excerpt - the one where readers are first introduced to Hawk - did a good job of "hooking" me, because I went on a Spenser binge that pretty much never stopped, and which expanded to include Sunny Randall, Jesse Stone, and even one of his westerns.

I am at a complete loss for words, now.

Cheers...

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[furzicle.livejournal.com]

"I'm sad,too," she said, "about that."