[2] The Spenser novels have been cited as reviving and changing the detective genre by critics and bestselling authors,[3] including Robert Crais, Harlan Coben, and Dennis Lehane.

[4] Parker also wrote nine novels featuring Jesse Stone, a Los Angeles police officer who moves to a small New England town; six novels with Sunny Randall, a female private investigator; and four Westerns starring the duo Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch.

[7] After earning a bachelor of arts degree from Colby College in Waterville, Maine, Parker served as a soldier in the US Army Infantry in Korea.

In 1957, he earned his master's degree in English literature from Boston University and then worked in advertising and technical writing until 1962.

According to critic Christina Nunez, Parker's "inclusion of [characters of] other races and sexual persuasions" lends his writings a "more modern feel".

[9] For example, the Spenser series characters include Hawk and Chollo, African American and Mexican American, respectively, as well as Spenser's Jewish girlfriend, Susan, various Russians, Ukrainians, Chinese, a gay cop, Lee Farrell, and even a gay mob boss, Gino Fish.

[11] Parker created female detective Sunny Randall at the request of actress Helen Hunt, who wanted him to write a part for her to play.

[8] Another figure created by Parker was Jesse Stone, a troubled former LAPD detective, who starts a new career as a police chief in a small New England town.

[13] Parker and his wife created an independent film company called Pearl Productions, based in Boston.

[14] Parker's favorite books were The Bear, The Great Gatsby, Hamlet, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Maltese Falcon, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Dubliners, The Big Sleep, U.S.A. trilogy, and The Ambassadors.

[17] Parker received the 2002 Joseph E. Connor Memorial Award from the Phi Alpha Tau Fraternity at Emerson College.

Parker was 77 when he died suddenly of a heart attack at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on January 18, 2010; discovered at his desk by his wife Joan, he had been working on a novel.

The book Parker was working on at the time of his death was completed by his literary agent Helen Bran.

Parker's Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch series was continued by actor and screenwriter Robert Knott.