Robert B. Parker

I started reading the Spenser novels in high school. My mom started reading them first and recommended them to me. I couldn't get enough of them. My friend Heather and her mom loved them, too. I even convinced my family to name our dog Spenser.

At some point I stopped reading Parker, but in the last few years I've started up again. It's such a cliche, but I thought he'd always be around, that the Spenser books would just keep coming. I really hate the thought that some day I'll have read them all.

Here's a nice roundup of tributes (from Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind).