The Robert B. Parker Companion

The Robert B. Parker Companion is the Elizabeth Foxwell 2005 reference and critical book on the prolific Spenser novelist and creator of the Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone series. The volume includes critical essays on the major series, a complete bibliography, character index, contextual interviews, and the kind of careful editorial assembly that the reference form rewards.

Foxwell's strength in The Robert B. Parker Companion is the careful critical attention. The essays treat Parker as a serious literary subject rather than as a genre property, with attention to his prose style, his evolution across decades, and his relationship to the American PI tradition (Chandler, Macdonald, Robert B. Parker). The bibliographic material is unusually thorough. Fans of Otto Penzler's reference work or of Marvin Lachman's mystery-genre scholarship will recognize the careful critical-reference tradition.

The volume is now nearly two decades old and predates Parker's 2010 death and the subsequent continuation novels. The foundational material has aged well.

Four stars. A serious working reference on a major American crime writer. The Robert B. Parker Companion Elizabeth Foxwell volume is recommended for Parker readers and for students of the contemporary PI tradition.