Time to Saddle Up Again

Author Robert B. Parker may have died almost three years ago, but his literary legacy lives on. I already knew that Ace Atkins is continuing Parker’s series about Boston private eye Spenser (the next installment of which, due out in May 2013, will be titled Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland) and that motion-picture producer Michael Brandman is composing additional titles in Parker’s Jesse Stone series (including Robert B. Parker’s Fool Me Twice, which appeared this last fall).

But what I hadn’t realized until earlier today was that Parker’s 19th-century Western series featuring Everett Hitch and Virgil Cole isn’t riding off into the sunset either. Actor/writer Robert Knott, who--with fellow performer Ed Harris--adapted and produced the 2008 film Appaloosa (based on Parker’s 2005 novel of the same name), has penned at least one new Hitch/Cole novel, Robert B. Parker’s Ironhorse, which is scheduled for release by U.S. publisher Putnam on January 8 of next year.

After all of this, can we expect to see further adventures for Parker’s other Beantown gumshoe, Sunny Randall? Don’t bet against it.