Well, I didn't like the early ones either. I've read maybe
three or four of them, and I wouldn't have read more than one
except the library always had lots of them when I depended on
library books for my fix. 1. The protagonist was forever
cooking and eating, and the food didn't even seem appealing.
These days this "hobby" pops up all over the place in
mysteries, which I blame on Parker. 2. The protagonist has
the most annoying significant other in all of literature. Is
he attached to her in order to avoid a meaningful
relationship? 3. He has a black sidekick who seems to surface
whenever the plot calls for some thuggery. I always detected
an odor of racism, which I'm sensitive to. 4. Worst of all,
Jerome Doolittle's covers and reviews always said, "If you
like Parker, you'll like Doolittle," so I figured, logically,
"I can't stand Parker, so I won't like Doolittle." So wrong!
I love Jerome Doolittle's books, and I never got to read them
until they were out of print, which, maybe not all that
logically, I blame on Parker. If only Doolittle had written
as many books as Parker!
Joy, a fan of Crider's writing, if not his taste in
reading
> > ...I see that Robert B. Parker will be
receiving the Grandmaster award.
> > I have a feeling that some rara-avians might
disagree with that one.
> > But not I.
> >
> > Bill Crider
>
> I agree. I never understood all this hostility.
Maybe he deteriorated in
his later books, so what? Everybody agrees that his first six
or whatever books were first class, so let's remember him by
them.
>
> Regards,
> Frankie
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