In Pursuit of Spenser Read Online Free PDF Page A

that very moment. And I feel this is a crucial lesson these days as people become more absorbed in the digital world without experiencing the actual world. Spenser is all in the here and now. This serves him well as an investigator, a bodyguard, and as someone who has survived numerous attempts on his life. But it’s also a worldview that helps him enjoy life more than the rest of us.
    There have been countless times I’ve returned to Spenser when I feel I’ve run aground, when I’m experiencing grief, or when I feel I’m overwhelmed with too much in my head. There is a rhythm and a Zen energy that Parker developed for Spenser that transfers well beyond the page, adjusting readers’ outlooks even if it’s just for the time they’re reading the novel. You can hear the wind, the leaves in the trees, and appreciate the change of seasons.
    In that, Bob Parker has left us much more than just an entertaining series and compelling hero. In the spaces between and during the action, he’s taught us how to untie our minds and stand still, to watch and enjoy what’s going on around us. To be here now.
    As Spenser heads into his fortieth adventure, I was honored to be chosen by the Parker estate to continue this iconic series that has meant so much to me. As I started the task, I was filled with natural self-doubt and hesitation. I found it a bit ironic, knowing that Spenser chose an ex–college football player with an appreciation for bourbon as his apprentice in Sixkill , the last novel that Bob wrote. In that book, Susan and Spenser talk about Sixkill’s transformation:
    SUSAN : If he learns what you know, and behaves as you behave, then it allows him to slough off the costume.
    SPENSER : So I haven’t helped him change as much as I’ve helped him get out.
    And as I write, I keep in mind what Spenser tells Sixkill when they first take on a bunch of thugs together, feeling like I’m walking with Bob as I do this:
    Four men came out of the entrance tunnel and onto the field.
    “Don’t think about it. You’ve trained enough. It should come as needed. Like riding a bicycle.”
    After two decades of friendship, I’ve learned a hell of a lot.

VOICE OF THE CITY
    | DENNIS LEHANE |
    I DIDN’T PUBLISH anything worth noting until the second chapter of my first novel. I say the second chapter, not the first, because the second chapter opens with the line, “The old neighborhood is the Edward Everett Square section of Dorchester.” That’s my voice. The opening line of the first chapter is, “The bar at the Ritz Carlton looks out on the Public Garden and requires a tie.” That is not my voice; that is Robert B. Parker’s voice. In fact, the whole first chapter, with its self-consciously flashy repartee and overtly smartass main character, Patrick Kenzie, cracking wise with excessive abandon, is so faux-Parker, so mimeo-Spenser, so wearing the anxiety of its influence on every inch of its sleeve, that if I could publicly disown it and still have the book make sense, I would do so.
    The reason I discovered myself only in chapter two was because that’s when I left downtown for the neighborhoods. My Boston is the Boston of the neighborhoods, the ring around the hub. Robert B. Parker’s Boston is the city proper, The Hub itself. I write about the Victoria Diner and the Ashmont Grill in Dorchester; he wrote about the Parker House and Maison Robert on School Street by Old City Hall. He wrote about Newbury Street, Marlborough Street, and Commonwealth Avenue. I write about East 2nd, the Melnea Cass, and Dot Ave. And when I did wander into Parker’s backyard, I trod lightly and with respect. Because it was his zip code; I was visiting.
    We were both, from the outset of our respective careers, unshakably and unquestionably Bostonian. I got that way by birth; he came it to it by choice and certain inextricable “Bostonianisms” that defined his character and that of Spenser, his indelible PI hero.
    A defining characteristic of