A site dedicated to the Spenser novels by Robert B. Parker

This Site is an offspring of one created by Mike Loux many years ago, and will always be in his honor.  His last update was in early 1998 and I've been the proprietor since late 1999.

Latest update 10 September 2007 by Bob Ames

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I'm sorry if this place is being rarely updated nowadays but I've changed my shift at work, gotten involved in other things, and don't have the interest I once had in doing the research.  It's getting on to almost eight years now, and I'm pretty much burned out.  I'm about three books behind on the Spenser novels and haven't touched the Jesse or Sunny books.  

NEW! Many thanks to Warmapplecider for informing me about the source of the DHMO article I've had in my Flummery and Diversions section for years. It's always been my policy to give credit where credit is due, and I think you will like exploring the rest of the site (© by Tom Way).  I have asked for permission to leave it as it is or to link directly to his version and will update the file accordingly.

NEW! It is well known that Robert and Joan Parker have been very active in charity work for many years, so it came as no surprise when sanjoypaul sent me the following:

"Saw ths in the Boston Herald: fundraiser for the Hoffman Breast Center of Mount Auburn Hospital: www.mountauburnhospital.org  Five authors and RBP.  Monday May 21, 64 Brattle Street, Cambridge, $250 a pop."

NEW! Kevin Coupe alerted me that Amazon is listing the Jesse Stone movies "Night Passage" and "Death in Paradise" as coming out on DVD 21 June.  If you haven't seen them yet you really should.  In my opinion, Tom Sellick has come closer to capturing the essence of a Parker character than anyone has ever been done before.  He also noticed that:

 "Appaloosa" has been green-lit by New Line...which means they'll probably go into production in the fall, according to his blog. 

See http://robertbparker.typepad.com and also note he mentions a CD his son Dan has put together titled "Songs that Spenser taught me" with at least one that the Big Guy himself performs. More info to follow, but see Upcoming for the latest.

NEW! Jeffrey McGraw was the first to notice the next Spenser novel, Now and Then.  See Upcoming

NEW! I've been planning this addition for quite some time.  Dr. Parker has written a few short stories over the years and although some of them are collections available at your local bookstore there are a few that you can't get at any price, and if you could not a single dime would find it's way back to the man or the original publishers.  Therefore, until I recieve a cease and desist orders from the copyright holders here is my listing of Spenser's Short Stories

NEW! Kevin Varnon meantioned that Parker may very well have written the Taltos series of fantasy novels.  Although as he points out that Spenser and Vlad are very much alike and the dialogue is stikingly similar, Steven Brust may argue otherwise.  Then again I remembered lines from the following two books:

"My new place was on the second floor of a two-story round turret
that stuck out over the corner of Mass Ave and Boylston street
above a cigar store." - Promised Land ch. 1  1978

"My office is located in back of a psychedelic herb shop." -
Taltos ch. 1  1988

I've been unable to find a web address to ask Mr. Brust if he has the works of Dr. Parker on his bookshelves, but Kevin makes a good point.  And the dragon Loiosh playing the role of Hawk?  Not all that hard to imagine.

NEW! Thanks to Cindy Foreman for additions to A Catskill Eagle and Taming a Sea Horse

NEW! Joe Walker clued me in on something that The Mysterious Bookshop is doing.  They commissioned a series of biographies of fictional characters written by the authors, and the first one is Spenser by Robert B. Parker.  There was a print run of 1000 paperbacks and you can get one with any order (while they last) and 100 signed and numbered Hardcover editions.  See more info at  http://www.mysteriousbookshop.com/newsletter/newsletter.php   

NEW! Dr. Parker's next book is Edenville Owls.  It's meant for a younger audience, but looks worthy of consideration for all fans.  His publicist sent along the following note:

"Bob Parker retired from the tour circuit last Fall ... but he will have 4 hardcover books out in 2007 ( HIGH PROFILE has already been a bestseller), one of which is his first Young Adult novel, EDENVILLE OWLS, out on 4/25" 

Those of us who were lucky enough to meet him at previous signings know what a pleasure it was to meet such an articulate, funny, and all around good guy.  As long as you keep writing them, I'll keep reading them.

And Cindy, I'm processing your many wonderful additions to the Catskill Eagle page and will do an update shortly.

NEW! Cheryl Drefs pointed out an obvious error that has been overlooked for the last 33 years in God Save the Child and Cindy Forman sent a very large number of updates to Valediction

NEW! I came across some information about the next Sunny Randall book on the No-Exit Press web site.  See Upcoming Events and Spare Change

NEW! James Fulford supplied some great pictures and links to supplement a paragraph in Looking for Rachael Wallace.  See Boston Public Library

NEW! Thanks to Arthur Martin for a great series of letters leading to additions for Widow's Walk, Hush Money, Small Vices, Paper Doll, Chance, and Thin Air.

NEW! Thanks to Glenn Curry for finding the cover photo for High Profile, and  Hisao Tomihari for an overlooked quote in A Catskill Eagle

Let's all bow our heads:  Donald Eng wrote in with the the following:

It's a sad day for Spenser fans and those of Harbor Health Club owner Henry Cimoli. Willie Pep, who, as we know, messed up ol' Henry's face once, died at age 84.  See the ESPN story at http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=2673944

NEW!  Thanks to James Fulford for fantastic updates to The Judas Goat, Paper Doll, and the line from Thedor Reik that Parker misquoted in four of the books.  Mitch009 has further citations for "The wheels of justice grind exceeding slow" line from Thin Air, and best selling author Jeffery McGraw found an announcement of Parker's book due next June (see Upcoming).

NEW! Sorry for not getting this up by the weekend but my ISP has been fighting me every step of the way.  Major update and lot of people to thank:

• Gino A. Altobelli for pointing out that Dr. Parker clarified the pronunciation of Paul's last name as "Jack-Oh- Man, like the old Rangers goalie" on the official site www.robertbparker.net

• Mike Lloret for noting the lack of continuity in Del Rio using a chess book in Potshot and the need to explain Indian Pudding to an audience outside of New England.

• Nancy Hallas for an expansion of the Chesterfield cigarettes reference in Mortal Stakes.

• Rob Avarbeck for taking several of my photos of the area around Spenser's apartment and doing a great job of cleaning them up digitally.  See Spenser's Apartment

• Bill F and Dan Addy who both pointed me to Spenser's sense of smell in A Catskill Eagle and led me to include "The Nose Knows" in Oft Quoted

• Mark Cain for tying together the Spenser books with Robert Urich, who played him in the TV series.  See Captains Courageous meets Early Autumn

• Judy Bogdanove for finding a much better source for "a thing is what it is" in Taming a Sea Horse

• Bill F for passing along a CNN link for those of you outside the area who don't know about Plimouth Plantation as mentioned in Promised Land

• Dan Addy for noting that I had not referenced Spenser's spirited version of Civilization (Bongo, Bongo, Bongo) on the Catskill Eagle page.

• Someone else found the Spenser: for Hire DVD collection on another site.  I have updated my Buyer Beware page to include the graphic you will find on the four sites I've visited.  DO NOT BUY THESE COLLECTIONS! 

NEW!  Mark Cain notes another connection to the Spenser universe in Early Autumn, Dan Addy pointed out that Spenser's sense of smell has saved him at least three times, leading me to add "The Nose Knows" to Oft Quoted , and in addition to my Release Spenser rant I pulled an entry from further down here to warn those of you who would like to see Spenser: for Hire on DVD called Buyer Beware and put it on the Articles and Pictures page. 

NEW! Thom Brannan has often gone well beyond the call of duty in support of this site.  Not only did he write what I consider the official theme song of B&B but he also let me store countless megabytes of files on his music site when I had outgrown my personal web space until I finally got a commercial account of my own.  He also sent me a copy of the very rare and almost unobtainable Fibs album containing the unofficial theme song of this site, "Bullets 'n Beer."  See The Music

NEW! Robert B. Parker finally has an official web site, and he is participating in a big way as you can see from his blog on the site.  They also plan on adding an e-mail newsletter and perhaps a message board later this year.  Visit www.robertbparker.net  With information he included I updated the Upcoming Events page.

NEW! Back in June, Elizabeth Foxwell interviewed Dr. Parker in New York's Bryant Park, Glenn Curry recorded it, and the video files have been made exclusively available on this site.  See Bryant Park Interview.  Michael Simpson noted that about ten of the S:FH episodes are available on streaming video from AOL (see Spenser on AOL) and Mark Collins notes that the A&E movie version of Thin Air is available on DVD in a Region 2 version only (see A&E Episodes).

NEW! Updates to A Savage Place and Mortal Stakes, and Crimson Joy thanks to Adele Connelly, The Aging Gumshoe from JW Dougherty, Early Autumn from Bud Parrish, Bad Business from David Freeman, and a new page Spenser meets the Hardy Boys thanks to Mark Cook.

NEW! While the main purpose of this site is to explore the books, many fans have a keen interest in the TV show and movies based on them.  It took one hell of lot of time, but I finally put together what I consider the definitive collection of knowledge about the various TV versions of Parker's works.  See Parker on TV

NEW! Glenn Curry wins the award for finding the first scheduled stop on the signing tour for Hundred Dollar Baby.  See Tour Schedule.  Also SLane contributed another "those golden days of yore"  moment in Mortal Stakes and David Freeman noticed another song lyric in Chapter 37 of Bad Business and a typo in Bad Business

NEW! Tanya Hughes informs me that the four movies from the Spenser Movie Collection are available for rent at Netflix.  See Lifetime Movies for the titles.

NEW! George Waller wrote a series of Emails leading me to update Small Vices, Walking Shadow, The Godwulf Manuscript, Chance, and the Lyrics and Police Business pages.  Good job George.

NEW! Tim Healy wrote in to mention a second reference to a line in Walking Shadow and Jeff Goldsmith notes an interesting fact about the college called Taft

NEW! Elizabeth Foxwell, co-author of  The Robert B. Parker Companion, has a weekly radio show called "It's a Mystery" and she recently interviewed Dr. P.  Listen to the mp3 file at http://www.elizabethfoxwell.com/ItsaMystery.html and scroll down to the audio clips.  I also have exclusive rights to a video of the interview (supplied by Glenn Curry) but my site can't handle the bandwidth so I am looking around for someone else to store it and let me put in a link.  Parker was also interviewed by local celebrity newsman Chet Curtis.  Visit http://www.boston.com/news/necn/,  click on Curtis Report, and scroll down to find "Robert B. Parker talks about his new book."   Also Jeff Goldsmith pointed out the irony of the name Taft University.

BTW Parker writes so fast that his publisher has somewhere between five and seven books waiting to be published.  One of them is a novel aimed at young adults which will come out next May.  Titled Edenville Owls, it's the story of two teenagers, Bobby and Joanie and is set in 1946.  Was it Bobby who carved "RP+JH" in a diner tabletop in Playmates and a desktop in Love and Glory?  

NEW! Thanks to David Richard Farmer for pointing out a couple of errors in The Judas Goat, and George Waller for multiple additions to Double Deuce, Pastime, Playmates, and Paper Doll.  As a result Oft Quoted and Lyrics were also updated. 

NEW! Lisa Childress notes that Appaloosa came out in paperback on 01 June and has an excerpt from Hundred Dollar Baby.

NEW! Thanks to Michelle Lemay of the Inkwell Bookstore for adding additional information about Dr. Parker's signing on 22 June (See Tour Blue Screen), David Freeman for correcting the terrible misspellings in my Poetry entry of Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud", Iain Campbell for doing the same with "IF", and Dorothy Reynolds for noting that I misspelled "Ode on a Grecian Urn" as "to" on the Poetry page and six of the book pages.

BTW:  My long overdue page about Cold Service has been slowed down considerably while I add contributions from other fans to my list of things to look up.  Thanks to Bill Fiorilli, David Freeman, and Iain Campbell for making sure that when it eventually arrives it will, as always, be much better than if I had done it by myself. 

NEW! Amazon.com has finally listed details about the next Spenser novel, Hundred-Dollar Baby.

BUYER BEWARE:  Spenser: for Hire has still not been released on video, but you can sometimes find copies someone has burned in from the old videotapes.  I found a very good set from a private seller on eBay but I was very lucky.  There is a company on the web called DVDCraze that sells nothing but bootlegs of shows that have not been released (they don't tell you that of course; I researched a few titles on the site and found out for myself) and I urged caution in dealing with them to anyone who asked.  Here is the experience of one customer:

Your Caveat Emptor comment concerning DVDCraze was most appropriate.  I risked ordering the Spenser For Hire set.  Unfortunately, the set did not include all of the episodes and all but one of the dvds were defective.  Then it took almost a month of e-mails back and forth before the charge was removed from my credit card.

NEW! Ken Corless wrote in to inform me that some of the Spenser: for Hire episodes are available for watching at www.aol.com/in2tv.  I also added more info about the Spenser movies at Lifetime movies

NEWS The third Jesse Stone movie Death in Paradise was broadcast Sunday 30 April on CBS and it was a smash hit.  Fred Gillis, who originally alerted me about the airing, sent me some updates:

From tv-now.com:

When I interviewed Selleck and author Robert B. Parker about their CBS "Jesse Stone" movies, the former "Magnum" star said, "We've got to do about fifty of these, but there are only five books." You can bet the farm that Parker will be busy the rest of the year coming up with new storylines to keep the popular Stone franchise alive. CBS reported last night that the Sunday premiere of Jesse Stone: Death in Paradise ranks as the network's second best movie delivery of the season with 14.7 million viewers. Considering the fact that it was up against ABC's Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy, Selleck and Parker can be excused for thinking "victory" this week.

http://www.zap2it.com/tv/news/zap-tomselleckjessestone,0,3177130.story?coll=zap-news-headlines
http://leegoldberg.typepad.com/a_writers_life/2006/05/show_him_the_mo.html       

NEW! Parker's publicist sent me the complete Blue Screen Signing Tour, although I still have to hear back from the sponsors of one event.  Please note that the B&N event on June 17 in Newington NH has been changed to the following day.  Also Don Cockram noted the history of a line from Looking for Rachel Wallace, Doc Quatermass sent another reference to Spenser's first name I added here, and Elizabeth Foxwell, who alerted me to another signing event on June 14 at Bryant Park, has copies of The Spenser Companion available at www.elizabethfoxwell.com. 

NEW! After adding a new file with information about guns and weaponry from Matt I have spun off The Guns of Spenser to a page of its own.

NEW! Kevin Coupe sent in a copy of an interview with Tom Selleck where he revealed that a fourth Jesse Stone movie, an adaptation of Sea Change, will begin shooting this summer.  I agree with KC's guesstimate that we should see it next January or so.  See http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_27265045.shtml 

NEWS! Fred Gillis added two more signings on the Blue Screen Signing Tour and, even better than that, found a final signing for Sea Change at the public library right here in my own town on a Sunday afternoon at the end of this month. 

Breaking News! The fifth Sunny Randall book Blue Screen is due to be released on 06 June 2006 and Glenn Curry was the first to find a date on the signing tour.  Both of those links also include a picture of the US cover I found tonight.

NEW! The Cast of Characters has been updated through Cold Service, as has been The Books of Spenser.  I've also added a link from Articles and Pictures to a new page with further info on The Guns and Ammo of Spenser sent in by Mark Cook.  I also found a file that Jerry Smith sent in some time ago I've called Accuracy in Gun Descriptions.  Sorry for the delay, Jerry.  My next task is The Criminals of Spenser, which will push the numbers way up, and then on to the Cold Service page itself.  Hold your breath, campers.

NEW! I'm making progress on my Cold Service research, a full year after publication. Updates to The Homicides of Spenser and The Spenser Cookbook have been posted and the page itself will follow soon.  Well, um, for a certain definition of the word "soon." 

NEW! Jenn Montes de Oca once again brought up the question of Spenser's first name.  It reminded me that some of you may not have found your way to the FAQ that addresses this point, and since Dr. Parker and I share the same first name I have my own opinion. BTW since BOB is spelled the same forward or backward how can you not trust us?   

NEW! Dean James and Elizabeth Foxwell put out a book last fall called "The Robert B. Parker Companion."  It's quite good, and some of the chapters make me wish I had dug down a little deeper.  I have included it on the Links page.

NEW! Fred Gillis noticed a title change for the next Spenser novel to be released next fall.  See Hundred-Dollar Baby. 

I need to add a few buttons to the site (especially with regard to the TV series and movies) but the ones here were made several years ago using Microsoft Image Composer, which used to ship with older versions of FrontPage.  Bill Gates and his hell-spawned minions are crueler to orphans than Charles Dickens or Lemony Snicket ever dreamed of and my collection of .mic files is now totally useless.  I've looked around a bit but didn't see anything that looked anywhere near as good.  Suggestions? 

Breaking News Where is all the stuff you had to scroll through to get to the buttons below?  Off on a page of its own.  I'll put brand new stuff up above but it will eventually move to the other page.  I think it'll be a bit neater now, and still available if you want to know what the latest news was just a little while ago.  Latest update 17 July 2006

Info and FAQs Find out the history of Bullets and Beer, a brief bio of me, and a couple of FAQs. Do you wonder where to write Dr. Parker, what Spenser's first name is, or where to buy copies of Spenser: For Hire?  Just click on that large friendly button to the left.  Latest update 05 August 2006

The Spenser Books This is the heart of the site. Follow this to a list of all the books Robert B. Parker has written. When you get there, follow the link on each Spenser book to its individual page. Note that what I have added to Mike's original pages is in red, just like this. From Sudden Mischief on they are all mine and it changes back to black. The book pages are updated frequently as I get new information from other readers and you can note the latest addition from the dates on the Express Lane listings below.  BTW, there is very little about the TV series or Spenser movies on this site.  Latest update 08 January 2007

The Express Lane

Okay, you have read all of the info on the Books page (and there's important stuff there so don't miss it) and you want to head straight to one of the books I have done pages on.  Well here 'ya go.  Since I detest frames I thought a table might be useful.  The date at the bottom is the last time I updated that page, and you can thank Simone for that idea.

Timeline I've changed my way of doing things over the years and this button may disappear any time now, being of merely historical interest.  New items and "thank you" notes to contributors sit at the top of the page, and after a while are archived in Breaking News.  I will of course keep this file available somewhere on the site; a rule I consider more important than any other is to give credit to all of the people who helped make these pages better than what I could have done alone.  Latest update 14 December 2004

Articles and Pictures This is what I used to call Background Info.  Magazine and online articles I've found or written, transcripts of interviews, painstakingly compiled lists based on the novels, letters from other fans describing their opinions and experiences, a link to my Spenser Cookbook, pictures of books covers from many countries, artwork from noted designers, photos of where Spenser lives and works including Boston and Cambridge locations mentioned in the books. I've never found a name that conveys the fact that after the individual book files I consider this the most important part of the site.  It's a jumping off point to a lot of places you really must visit to get a full understanding of the Spenser universe. The Spenser Universe?  Hmm, let me think about that and find the button making program; it may be changed by the next time you log in.  Or not; note my sleep schedule above. Stream-of-thought  update 10 June 2004.  Latest update 18 November 2006.

The Music It started with the theme song from the TV show, now there is an Official Theme Song of the Bullets and Beer web site and a few other goodies.   Latest update 14 December 2004.

Oft Quoted Dr. Parker is fond of noting the works of other authors, as pointed out in The Annotated Spenser section of the individual book pages. When he does it three or more times I move it here.  Latest Update 03 November 2006.

The Poetry of Spenser RBP is quite fond of sprinkling lines from poems and such throughout the books. Since I collected them all in the course of my research I thought I would include them here. Latest update 06 June 2006.

The Lyrics I also have a page containing the lyrics of  the songs he has referred to over the years.   Someone suggested this back in 2000 or so but I lost their name about three hard drive crashes ago.  I like to credit my sources and I'm sorry for not being able to in this case.  Latest update 13 January 2007.

The Quotes Are Out There ...and I couldn't find all of them. Researching the feature of each book page called "The Annotated Gumshoe" was by far the longest part of this project. I'm pretty good with a search engine, but Parker rewords a lot of his references so well that they have eluded me. Maybe you'd like to take a stab at them.  Latest update 17 August 2006

The Links Web sites come and go so this list changes over time but these are the ones that I think you would be well advised to visit.  Then again, your mileage may vary.  Latest update 31 August 2006

Flummery and Diversions Some mildly funny stuff I did just for the fun of it. Go on, take a break, the serious stuff will still be there when you come back. The Lord of the Rings section expanded rapidly when the movies made it big.  Latest update 24 March 2006

My previous Hit Counter decided that working for free was no longer an option and started to demand a rather healthy  vigorish.  It has since been provided with a pair of concrete galoshes and invited to observe the sleeping habits of our piscine friends. Let's see how this new one works out.

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This former link is for reference purposes only.  Dodd Vickers was an egotistical asshole with a pathetic site he never updated except with slightly reworded files he stole from me, and who considered a Yahoo chat board as an extension of his site.  He also registered bulletsandbeer.com (without the dashes I was forced to use) for two years while pointing it to his own site after promising to point it to mine.  Rot in Hell Dodd; I may get around to posting my extensive documentation of how you have fouled the internet or just let you disappear into the anonymity you don't really deserve.

Gerald So, moderator extraordinaire, who has plugged this site since its very humble beginnings.  Below are three sites he manages.

Spenser's Sneakers discusses Spenser creator Robert B. Parker's works, themes, and influence.

CrimeSeen discusses crime as adapted for television, feature film, and other entertainment media.  Gotta love that name.

DetecToday is dedicated to private eye fiction from 1980 to the present. Works of Lee Child, Robert Crais, Dennis Lehane, Laura Lippman, George Pelecanos, and S.J. Rozan frequently discussed.

Listen to the show, subscribe to the newsletters, and live a better, more productive life.

Please note that I have consumed Krispy Kreme products just once and for scientific purposes only.  Kids, just say no.