CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Jan. 19 (UPI) -- Robert B. Parker, the author of the "Spenser" detective novel series, died of a heart attack while at work in his Massachusetts home, his agent said. He was 77.
Parker did not have any apparent health problems, Helen Brann, who represented him for most of his career, told The New York Times. He collapsed while at his desk in his study in Cambridge.
The author of more than 60 books -- including 40 featuring Spenser, a Boston private eye whose first name is never used -- Parker sometimes wrote three books a year. Spenser was played by Robert Urich in a television series, "Spenser for Hire," from 1985 to 1988.
Parker began writing the Spenser novels after doing a doctoral thesis at Boston University on Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald, all writers of the "hard-boiled" school.
In recent years, Parker developed two more series characters -- female private detective Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone, a police chief in a small New England town who is also an alcoholic and a former ballplayer.
Parker is survived by his wife of 53 years, Joan, and two sons.
