Spenser is back. And Mike Lupica couldn’t be happier about it.
With “Broken Trust,” the veteran journalist and author has taken up the voice and mantle of Boston’s most famous (fictional) private investigator. It’s the 51st book in the series, originated by the late Robert B. Parker, a Beantown mainstay, who died in 2010, and continued by author Ace Atkins.
“I’m proud of this book. I’m proud of the way I have carried on (Spenser and Parker’s legacy),” Lupica told MassLive last week during an interview from his home in Wellington, Fla.
The new book, a complicated and twist-filled tale of tech, business mergers and murder in the Boston’s financial district, finds Spenser back in the Back Bay, and amid his familiar haunts along Berkeley, Arlington and Marlborough streets.
Locals may delight at mentions of such local institutions as the Street Bar in the Newbury Hotel, Marathon Sports and Bistro du Midi, which overlooks the historic Public Garden in the heart of downtown.
While it’s his first Spenser novel, Lupica, 71, is no stranger to the Parkerverse. He’s already written several installments of Parker’s best-selling “Jesse Stone” and “Sunny Randall” series.
“If you loved Bob Parker, and you loved his work, Spenser is the guy you want to write,” Lupica told MassLive, adding that he’s passed the baton for Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone to other authors so he can focus exclusively on Spenser. Indeed, the 52nd book in the series is already in the works.
In a wide-ranging interview, Lupica, a New Hampshire native with deep ties to Boston, talked about Spenser and the cast of supporting characters that make the books complete, his love for the Bay State’s biggest city, and why he’s sometimes stumped by titles.
The conversation below has been lightly edited for clarity and content.
MassLive: You wrote some of the “Jesse Stone” books, you wrote some of the “Sunny Randall” books, and now you’re taking up [Spenser] from Ace Atkins … Does this feel like getting the call-up to the Big Club in some ways?
Lupica: “You probably know, Bob [Parker] was a friend of mine. We used to email frequently during the baseball season. I visited the [Parkers’] house in Cambridge … I first bought [the debut Spenser novel] “The Godwulf Manuscript” at a Brentano’s on Boylston Street when I was in college. And so, this man’s voice has been in my head ever since.
“ … But I never planned to do this. I used to listen on walks, and long rides, all the time, to the Parker books — even the books that I have read and reread. And I was on my way up to Vermont from Connecticut, and my daughter was reading Sunny Randall … And when I got up there, I called [my agent], and I told her [Parker’s] westerns had been continued, Spenser got continued, and Jesse got continued you know, by multiple writers. How come no one ever kept Sunny going? … She said ‘I would want you to write a sample chapter.’
“And I said ‘No, no, no, I wasn’t pitching myself, I have more than enough to do.’ And she said, ‘Write the sample chapter.’ I got up in the morning, at this house we were renting up there, and wrote the 10 pages that essentially became the first chapter of [the Sunny Randall novel] ‘Blood Feud.’ And that easily, and quickly, I was in the Parkersphere. And the minute I started writing … I knew I was in my comfort zone.
“… And then they asked me if I wanted to do ‘Jesse [Stone],’ and I said ‘Yeah.’ And I would still be doing all three — just the way Bob did it, except [James] Patterson came into my life … I keep telling people that if there were 16 months in the year, I would continue all three characters.”
(Editor’s Note: Lupica and the author James Patterson have collaborated on a series of books.)
MassLive: What’s it like inhabiting that voice, that Spenser voice, making sure you [capture it]?
Lupica: “If you go back, I wrote three mysteries back in the ‘80s and ‘90s about a New York investigative reporter, Peter Finley. So if you go back and read it, or if you’ve ever read my column, you know we have very similar voices. That kind of side-of-the-mouth, ironic, smart-ass stuff is [me]. So I’m not trying to ghost him. I’m just carrying on … I think it’s more an attitude … and so I’m thrilled when people say ‘Oh I can’t tell whether this is Parker or me.’ Which is incredibly high praise … It’s been a very natural progression.”
MassLive: In many ways, Parker was the voice of contemporary American mystery fiction. He’s such a gold-standard.
Lupica: “ … Spenser, in so many ways, has taken his place, and I think he’s at the head of the list with, you know, [fictional private detectives] Philip Marlowe, Travis McGee. We can go through that whole list. [Spenser’s] humor, his attitude, the whole knight-errant quality to him. It’s fitting that Bob made him come from Laramie, Wyo., because there’s an Old West, cowboy feel. And … nobody did it better than [Parker] did.”
MassLive: There is no more relationship, real or fictional, than the relationship between Spenser and [Boston] and the city and Spenser. It’s always so much a character in the books.
Lupica: “The only other person [where] the city becomes as much a character as Boston as in Spenser is [with] my friend Robert Crais. Los Angeles is such a powerful character in the ‘Elvis Cole/Joe Pike’ books. But, again, you can see my love of Boston. You can see [Crais’] love of Los Angeles.
“I think I figured out one time that even having gone to New York, and had a newspaper career there, I think I’ve spent, just professionally, a year of my life, in Boston hotels. And then you go back again to college and for all my kids’ graduations, and visits … my love for the city is profound. I grew up, you know, Nashua (N.H.) is 45 minutes away from downtown Boston.”
(Editor’s Note: Lupica is a Boston College graduate.)
MassLive: This book, “Broken Trust,” is contemporary in the themes that it takes on, our worship of the Rich Guy Genius and the dominance of the tech sector.
Lupica: “Rich guys are celebrities … Their money makes them rock stars … One thing, working in New York, as long as I have, I’ve always said all really rich people and really famous people have a tremendous fear of heights. Because when they look down from their perch, falling scares the crap out of them.”
MassLive: What do you want people to take away from this book, if they’re coming to Spenser for the first time, or if they’re coming back?
Lupica: “I think the people who come to this book will know Spenser, and they will know Robert B. Parker’s work … People who love this man’s work, and love this man’s characters, I believe, they know that they’re in good hands; [with] someone who will honor them, and have fun with them, and hopefully continue to present them to readers in an interesting way.”
