This is about Robert Parker, the mystery novelist (the Spenser series, Jesse Stone) who died in January of a heart attack at 77 while working at his desk on another book.

I have just finished reading his last Jesse Stone novel, published this year. In it he has combined Stone’s adventures with those of Sunny Randall, a female detective about whom he has written another series.

Both characters have had painful, complicated marriages and have had trouble separating themselves from their lost loves even while knowing that they couldn’t make these relationships work.

In a previous novel, Stone and Randall get together but it doesn’t go anywhere because they are both still hung up. In this last book, they finally unhook from their compulsive pasts and it seems have really found each other. This plot resolution is almost prophetic as though Parker was tying up loose ends before dying.

His obit, very interesting reading, said there are two more unpublished Spenser novels coming out soon. The television series, starring Robert Ulrich, a charming and charismatic actor who lost a battle with cancer several years ago, was one of my favorites. He did so well with the role that I thought of him as Spenser.

I found myself saddened by the knowledge that there will be no more tales about these very likable characters. There will be no more witty dialogue, insouciant repartee, fast-paced plot twists … it seems they have died too. A whole cast of fictional friends are gone. That is too sad.

xx, Teal