Already a bad year for mystery fans…

Updated on February 15, 2010 By Ken Begg 6 Comments

First Robert B. Parker, now Dick Francis has passed away at the venerable age of 90. Unlike Parker, I never read Francis, who set his novels in the world of horse racing, which little appeals to me. Moreover, I’m more (if not exclusively) of a fan of the hardboilded school.

That said, working in a library has made me well aware that Mr. Francis had a LOT of loyal fans. As I noted when Mr. Parker passed, when a writer dies, he takes a universe, and sometimes several, with him.

Rest in peace, sir.

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  • Joe

    Hardboilded is my favorite John Woo film.

  • Elizabeth

    Have you ever read any of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe stuff? I wouldn’t call it hard-boiled, exactly, but it’s fast-paced and funny.

  • Elizabeth (if that is your real name!), my absolute, adoring love of Wolfe and Archie has been expressed on these pages many, many times. But any opportunity to push that series for other people is to be appreciated.

    Archie’s character was originally meant to be a lot more hardboiled, though, which makes reading Fer-de-Lance kind of strange.

  • Calypso

    Actually, Ken, I’m willing to bet that if you like Robert Parker, you’d like Dick Francis. He’s not as lyrical, but his protagonists are the same kind of tough, resourceful, decent, fallible, honorable kind of guys Spencer is. I’d grab something in the middle of his years of work to start with (he was skillful in the earliest ones but got better with time; in the last few, as with so many genre authors, he repeated himself quite a lot—but they’re still fun).

    Anyway, thanks for letting us know. It is sad.

  • Thanks, Calypso. I’ll pick one of his books up.

  • Elizabeth

    Ken! I know that is your real name!

    I am saddened to admit that I have not been reading your blog with the utmost care it deserves, but I am v. v. V. glad you already know of Nero Wolfe’s greatness. I actually love the contrast between “Fer du Lance” and the other novels, because it’s like Archie (as amanuensis) is feeling out the audience before becoming more comfortable and colloquial in his retellings.

    I’ve heard the fanfic types saying that Wolfe is the illegitimate Montenegrin child of Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes, but frankly I think that’s silly. After all, had Wolfe had an intelligent mother, he probably wouldn’t have been the galloping misogynist we know and love.