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Spenser: Difference between revisions
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* [[Author Existence Failure]]: Parker died at age 77 in 2010. He had a sudden heart attack while seated at his desk, writing a novel, and many of his colleagues and fans have agreed it was the best possible way for him to go out.
* [[Badass]]:
** [[Cultured Badass]]: Spenser is a gourmet cook, has read (and can quote) all of the classics, enjoys poetry and ballet, and is absolutely capable of ending you in a dozen ways should the need arise.
** While Hawk spends a lot of time amusing himself by pretending to be an ignorant thug, he speaks at least three languages, listens to classical music, travels widely, is always impeccably dressed, and has a taste for fine wines. He's also a former member of the French Foreign Legion and is, among other things, a hitman; Hawk sits out the action in ''Painted Ladies'' because he's been hired to do some freelance work for the CIA. Whatever he's doing when he's not hanging out with Spenser, it pays ''very'' well.
** Spenser has gradually developed a crew of badasses who will often come running when he asks, most of whom are professional criminals. This includes Hawk; Chollo and Bobby Horse, two mob enforcers and gunmen for an LA-based crimelord; local mafioso gunslinger Vinnie Morris; local Boston cop Lee Farrell; and the ex-Airborne bouncer Tedy Sapp.
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* [[Groin Attack]]: In ''Promised Land'' a female martial artist lands one on him, but he's been on the receiving end enough times to shake it off and knock her on her ass, where he then tells her not to rely solely on that trick.
* [[Heterosexual Life Partners]]: Spenser and Hawk.
* [[High
** In ''Hugger Mugger'' Spenser meets a lesbian in Georgia who runs such an enterprise, though she sends out the problem girls to do blow jobs at truck stops ({{spoiler|which is what Stonie did as revenge to her husband}}) From the same book, {{spoiler|Dolly}} describes herself as a courtesan, and when asked {{spoiler|how she knows that her son Jason's father was Walter Clive}} her response is "I was a courtesan. I am not a whore."
* [[Honor Before Reason]]: The running joke in the books is that Spenser operates under the delusion that he's Sir Gawain. He's mostly guided by his own occasionally-idiosyncratic sense of right and wrong, which often complicates his life and his cases.
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* [[The Mafiya]]: In ''Cold Service'' Spenser and Hawk go up against the Ukrainian Mafia out of Marshport.
* [[Miss Kitty]]: Patricia Utley, introduced in ''Mortal Stakes'' and her protegee, April Kyle, though the latter is ''much'' less stable and successful.
* [[Multiple Choice Past]]: ''Pastime'' is in large part a deck-clearing exercise, where Parker sits down and figures out what Spenser's background is once and for all. Before that book, there are occasional mentions of Spenser's family or childhood, some of which conflict with the official version. Parker dealt with the discrepancies by citing what a colleague called, paraphrased, "the right of the author to come up with a better idea"; in short, if two facts collide in the novels, the later version is the correct one.
* [[No Badass to His Valet]]: Neither Spenser nor Hawk intimidate Susan Silverman in the slightest. For that matter, Rachel Wallace isn't much intimidated by either of them either.
* [[No Communities Were Harmed]]: The fictional city of Marshport in ''Cold Service'' is very similar to the real-life city of Fall River, Massachusetts. Port City could also easily be one of several cities on the North Shore.
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