For myself, the owner announced he wanted to devote February to
Parker, I wrote a remembrance of Dr. Parker the night he died, and
withing a half hour of my writing, people were taking shots at him.
I said how much I enjoyed his work, and the owner of the list
responded with how much he did not like Dr. Parker´s work. In my
remembrance, I mentioned the numerous holes in Parker´s work, and yet,
people felt the need to begin discussing and dwelling on those holes.
Given that the man had not even been buried, and people began to take
shots, I decided against initiating a discussion of his work, since it
would seem to do nothing more than provide an opportunity for for
people to tear the man apart.
I enjoy what he did, and I find much of his work valuable. Many don´t,
and thatś fine with me, but if people could not help but attack the
guy the day he died, I cannot imagine a discussion would prove
fruitful.
On 3/1/10, JIM DOHERTY <jimdohertyjr@yahoo.com> wrote:
> As far as I can remember, no one has actually talked about Parker's work
> this month (though, as I Recall, there was one thread about who might be
> Parker's replacement). Oddly, most of the threads about Parker's actual
> work came LAST month, along with the suggestion that THIS month be
> supposedly devoted to Parker.
>
> Well, just so there's at least one comment about Parker during what was
> supposedly his month, I'll mention that, while, as I mentioned earlier, I
> found the tropes of the Spenser novels increasingly annoying the further I
> got into the series, in recent years I've found his small-town procedurals
> featuring Police Chief Jesse Stone and his westerns featuring itinerant
> lawmen Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch quite enjoyable.
>
> I probably woudn't have given them a try, but I liked both the series of
> TV-movies starring Tom Selleck as Stone, and the film adaptation of
> APPALOOSA, the first Cole/Hitch novel, very much, and, on that basis,
> decided to give the books a try.
>
> It may be that, whether or not he was aware of it, a tendency to "phone in"
> the Spenser books had set in, due to the subconscious knowledge that it was
> going to sell like a genuine 14 carat gold brick marked down to a nickel no
> matter how little trouble he actually took, while with his new stuff, he had
> to take a little more care.
>
> In any case, the Stone novels and the Cole/Hitch novels have all the Parker
> virtues, fast pace, extremely readable prose, a particular facility with
> dialog, and nicely staged action scenes, and, at least early in the
> respective series, few of the Parker liabilities.
>
> Anyone here read the Sunny Randall books?
>
> JIM DOHERTY
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
-- Michael Damian Jeter New Orleans, LA Literacy, Music, and Democracy
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