When a popular genre writer dies, should their characters die with them?
After mystery writer Robert B. Parker’s unexpected death in 2010, his family and estate hired a Southerner, Ace Atkins, to continue writing novels featuring Parker’s Boston detective, Spenser
To cynics, the decision to carry on Parker’s novels appeared unseemly or, even worse, an act of literary grave robbing that threatened the author’s reputation. But those people didn’t know Robert B. Parker, a man who, when asked how his books would be viewed in 50 years, replied: “Don’t know, don’t care.” He was proud of his work, but he mainly saw writing as a means of providing a comfortable life for his family.