My mom loves Spenser. She has almost every Spenser book Robert B. Parker wrote. Parker himself wrote nearly 70 books, but his characters are so popular his series continued even after his death in 2010. Years ago, I read a couple of Spenser books because they were on my mom’s shelf, but I mostly loved…
Webster’s Dictionary defines the word “renegade” as an individual who rejects lawful or conventional behavior. Crime fiction no matter what medium—movies, TV, or books—is full of renegade characters who not only reject rules and ignore social norms, they routinely break the law, taking the concept of knight errant to a whole new level. Here are some…
As a genre, mystery is famous for its loners, guys like Jack Reacher, Monk and Lucas Davenport. But mysteries are also rife with bromances, all you have to do is look. What exactly is a bromance? The term is used to describe a non-sexual relationship between two men that are unusually close. In mystery, this…
Here on Criminal Element there’s been talk about horrific casting decisions (Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher) and ones that make you go “hmm” (Jason Statham as Richard Stark’s Parker), but there’s also another class of casting decisions that gets less notice, those that just absolutely work. In fact, this post was inspired by one of…
Robert B. Parker’s latest Spenser novel, Sixkill, hits shelves and e-readers everywhere on May 3rd. Though Parker passed away unexpectedly last January, it may be premature to assume this will be the last time we see Spenser in action. I mean, Parker died last year and still released three books. For all we know, he…
