In 1973, a Korean War veteran with a Ph.D. in English from Boston University published his first novel, a detective tale called "The Godwulf Manuscript."
Its hero was a private detective named Spenser (no first name). Robert B. Parker’s books about him became a phenomenon — Parker wrote 40 bestselling novels about Spenser (as well as numerous books in three other series) before he died at his desk in 2010.
In 2011, Parker’s family and estate announced that another writer would continue the Spenser series. Ace Atkins, a former St. Petersburg Times and Tampa Tribune journalist who had written a crime fiction series and four stand-alone crime novels and was about to launch a new series about a Mississippi sheriff, would continue bringing Spenser to readers.
