Spenser At 50: The Life And Times

Of Robert B. Parker’s Iconic P.I.

This year marks the half-century mark for Robert B. Parker’s Spenser mystery series. The iconic smart-mouthed private detective, in the tradition of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, first appeared a half-century ago in The Godwulf Manuscript. The New York Times dismissed the book as “not notable for originality or ideas,” but praised Parker’s writing and the character. Overall, Spenser was featured in 40 crime novels written by Parker (left), who died at his desk in 2010 at the age of 77. At the time of his passing, he left behind an unfinished Spenser manuscript, which was published posthumously after his agent finished it. The character also appeared in 66 episodes of the mid-1980s television series Spenser: For Hire, starring Robert Urich; three made-for-TV movies starring Joe Mantegna; and a poorly received Netflix movie starring Mark Wahlberg. The latter was based on the book Wonderland, written by bestselling author Ace Atkins, who continued to pen the Spenser characters following Parker’s death. “That was just a mess,” Atkins says in a Crime Reads article written by L. Wayne Hicks. “It got a lot of views on Netflix and came out at the right time because it’s right during the pandemic and people were streaming the hell out of Netflix. What in there is Spenser, I don’t know.” Now, after crafting ten Spenser novels of his own, Atkins has passed the baton to York columnist and author Mike Lupica, who previously kept two of Parker’s other characters going – Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone – in their own series of books. As Hicks notes, “Parker’s legacy is rooted in the characters he created. He lived long enough to see his books on the best-seller lists [but], unfortunately, his death meant he never had the chance to meet his grandson." His name? Spenser, of course.

TRUE CRIME

Notorious French Gangster Stands

Trial For 2018 Helicopter Jailbreak

Infamous French criminal Rédoine Faïd (left), who escaped from prison in July 2018 aboard a hijacked helicopter in a jailbreak that astonished France, has gone on trial in Paris amid tight security. In that dramatic escape, two accomplices took a chopper pilot hostage and landed in the courtyard at Réau Prison, south of Paris. They used smoke bombs and portable angle grinders to barge into a nearby visiting room where Faïd was meeting his brother Brahim. A prison guard said the two men, dressed as commandos, were carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles, and he and his colleagues were unable to respond to the attack. The Alouette II helicopter flew off and the incident was over in a matter of minutes. Faïd, who was already serving a sentence for a 2013 jailbreak, was eventually recaptured three months later in a raid on a flat in his hometown of Creil. His life as a gangster began with armed robbery and extortion in the crime-ridden suburbs of Paris in the 1990s, and he later wrote a book in which he described how the Michael Mann film Heat had influenced his attack on a security van in the 1990s. Because of his reputation for jailbreaks and concerns he might attempt another escape bid, French authorities have deployed an elite unit of gendarmes to keep him from absconding on his way to and from the court.

Movies Most People Won’t Believe

Are (Sort Of) Based On True Stories

Countless movies are based on real events, and most of them are quick to let you know it. Whether the plot is ripped from the headlines or merely adapted, taking inspiration from real-world happenings can confer a sense of legitimacy — the implication being that even if creative license was taken (as is often the case), the filmmakers are performing a kind of public service by bringing these stories to the big screen. Not all of these movies advertise their pedigree, however, and — as noted by Interesting Facts — there’s a good chance most people have no idea that more than a few audience (and cult) favorites are built on a foundation of reality. Take A Nightmare on Elm Street, for instance, which director Wes Craven said in a 2008 interview was based on three small articles in the L.A. Times about men from South East Asia, who had died in the middle of nightmares. Then there’s Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, which was adapted from Nicholas Pileggi’s non-fiction book Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family; as well as the William Friedkin classic The Exorcist, adapted from the novel by William Peter Blatty, who based it on the story of a 14-year-old boy whose family had believed he was possessed by a demon. A number of Jesuit priests performed the exorcism in 1949, which one account claims was witnessed by at least 48 people.

A Half Century Later, Spielberg’s

Duel Remains An Impeccable Thriller

It takes less than a minute of watching Duel, Steven Spielberg’s feature-length debut, to realize you’re in the hands of a master director destined to change the film industry forever. As Scott Tobias wrote in The Guardian when the film turned 50, “The opening shots alone—a POV from a camera attached to the front bumper of a red Plymouth Valiant—have an unsettling visceral jolt to them, despite the mundane action of the car pulling out of a suburban driveway and heading on its way. The bumper’s-eye-view would be a major component of Walter Hill’s superb 1978 thriller The Driver; Spielberg beat it by seven years.” It’s important to note that Duel was not Spielberg’s first time behind the camera by any means. As we know from his 2022 autobiographic film The Fablemans, he was such an unusually precocious young filmmaker that he drew the attention of Universal Pictures, which commissioned the short Amblin’ from him in 1968, when he was only 22, and signed him to a seven-year directing contract. “By the time he got to make Duel, Spielberg was already a seasoned TV director,” Tobias says. “Though the fact that Duel is understood as his first feature at all is a testament to his generational talent. It started as a 77-minute program for ABC’s Movie of the Week and proved such a sensation that he was given additional time and money to expand it into a 90-minute feature. Now, more than 50 years and countless accolades later, Duel feels like the proto-Jaws, an early statement of principles on how to build suspense and terror through patience, simplified action, and delayed gratification.”

REVIEW

Lee Goldberg’s Calico Is A Mind-

Blowing, Cross-Genre Thriller

My head is still spinning after tearing through Lee Goldberg’s new mind-blowing, genre-bending thriller Calico. My god: what an utterly incredible ride through more twists and turns than a double-helix roller coaster, while navigating multiple storylines that careen along parallel tracks with steadily increasing velocity. I’m reluctant to reveal much about the plot because even the smallest spoiler would mar the sheer joy of page-by-page discovery, but here goes: Disgraced police detective Beth McDade is called out one evening to investigate the death of an unidentified man who runs into the path of a motor home outside Barstow, CA, at the same time that some kind of top-secret incident cracks the night at the nearby Marine Corps Logistics Base. There’s nothing overtly suspicious about the accident itself, and clearly no criminal intent is involved ...yet several pieces of baffling evidence lead McDade and coroner Amanda Selby to look well beyond the laws of physics. Throw in the discovery of a century-old grave of a man who disappeared just a week ago, historic references to modern-day consumerism, and impossibly old coins, and the reader is plunged into a police procedural that cracks the outer limits of Outlander and Back To The Future. Calico is everything a fast-paced thriller should be: gripping, captivating, and—please excuse the cliché—truly impossible to put down. Thanks to Severn House for an advance reader's copy; publication date is November 7, so pre-order today.

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INDIGO ROAD

“Indigo Road is a beautifully wrought, hard-biting story with elements of classic noir presented through a prism of modern sensibilities. A fantastic read.” –S.A. Cosby, bestselling author of Razorblade Tears 

While still slinging drinks fulltime at The Sandbar in Folly Beach, Jack Connor works a side gig as a licensed bounty hunter. One afternoon, as he's transporting his latest bail skip named Willis Ronson back to jail, his SUV is ambushed by a team of gunmen, killing Ronson instantly and seriously injuring his court-appointed attorney, Alisha Dupree. Connor can’t help but poke around the edges of the deadly incident and quickly learns that Ronson was a man of many secrets, including a mysterious woman from his past who has caused him to be sucked into a domestic terrorist fringe group.