Robert B. Parker was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1932 and died in 2010. He earned a bachelor's degree at Colby College, served in the U.S. Army in Korea, and went on to a master's degree and a PhD in English literature at Boston University. His dissertation studied the private-eye heroes of Hammett, Chandler and Ross Macdonald.
He began writing fiction while teaching at Northeastern University and turned to writing full time in 1979. His Boston private detective Spenser appeared in 40 novels and inspired the TV series Spenser: For Hire. Many crime writers credit the Spenser books with reviving the American private-eye novel.
Parker launched the Jesse Stone series with Night Passage in 1997 and wrote nine Jesse Stone novels, the last published shortly after his death. He also created private investigator Sunny Randall and the Western lawmen Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch, whose first book, Appaloosa, became a feature film.
The Jesse Stone novels were adapted into a series of TV films starring Tom Selleck. Parker won an Edgar Award for the Spenser novel Promised Land and was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. Since his death, his estate has authorized other writers to continue his series.
