The Professional by Robert B. Parker

Readers lost one of their great storytellers earlier this year with the death of Robert B. Parker. By the time of his passing, Parker had published forty installments of the Spenser novels that made him both famous, and, in this reader’s opinion, the greatest hardboiled crime fiction writer of all time. What separates Parker’s Spenser from Hammett’s Spade, Chandler’s Marlowe, and all other pretenders to the crown, is the philosophy that shines through every page of Spenser that Parker ever wrote: a world in which evil is constantly afoot is redeemed when courageous individuals risk all for their sense of honor and justice, and are supported in doing so by the love that binds them to others. And the second half of that equation, represented by Spenser’s lasting love for Susan, in her own right one of our greatest fictional shrinks, and Spenser’s fraternal bond with Hawk, the embodiment of unbounded masculinity, is as important as the first. Between Spenser, Susan, and Hawk, Parker put on paper his very own wholeness. Readers return to Spenser again and again not just because Parker was a master of crackling dialogue, wise guy humor, edge-of-your-seat fisticuffs, and flawless pacing, but because the trinity of Spenser, Susan, and Hawk shows us a way forward in this oft cruel world. The Professional, one of the last Spensers, is up to Parker’s usual standards, i.e. it is sublime. Rest in peace, Robert B. Parker, and thank you for writing forty Spenser mysteries. I only wish you could write forty more.