Oct. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Veteran crime writer Robert B. Parker doesn't know from writer's block. He's published three new novels so far this year, and every one of them has hit the best-seller lists.

``Bad Business'' features his popular tough-guy detective Spenser, the 31st book in the series; ``Double Play'' deals with Jackie Robinson's experiences with racism in major league baseball; and most recently, there's ``Melancholy Baby,'' the fourth in a series starring the female detective Sunny Randall.

Parker, 72, a native of Springfield, Massachusetts who earned his Ph.D. in English literature from Boston University, has been churning out much-praised thrillers since his first Spenser novel, ``The Godwulf Manuscript'' in 1973. The book's success eventually liberated him from a job teaching English at Northeastern University.

The late literary historian R.W.B. Lewis once called the Spenser series ``one of the great series in the history of the American detective story.''

Parker, dressed in a leather jacket, sneakers and sports cap, met recently at Bloomberg's offices with critic Benjamin Ivry.

The Female Detective

Bloomberg: Your new crime novel, ``Melancholy Baby,'' features the Boston private eye Sunny Randall. It's her fourth book. What's she up to this time?

Parker: She's been hired to establish the parentage of a young woman who's uncertain thereof.

Bloomberg: What is Sunny like?

Parker: She is intelligent, courageous, stubborn, romantic, emotional, with a considerable capacity for friendship and some insight into herself.

Bloomberg: What's the difference between writing about a female detective and a male one?

Parker: Writing about Sunny Randall involves asking my wife, Joan, regular questions. Spenser and Jesse Stone and others I do on my own. Some of it's simple. Joan said to me once, ``Bob, we don't call that rouge anymore. You know, your mother wore rouge. We wear blush.''

Sunny Randall was originally written for the actress Helen Hunt, who wanted to play her in a series of movies. Then we held a meeting and we talked about various scenarios and I ended up writing a novel. My publisher published it, Sony bought it for Helen, and Helen didn't make the movie. But two out of three is pretty good for Hollywood.

No Sweat

Bloomberg: ``Melancholy Baby'' starts with a pretty snazzy opener: ``My ex-husband's getting married to a woman I wanted to kill.''

Parker: We try.

Bloomberg: Is it tough to find a good first sentence?

Parker: No. The whole thing is I've been doing this for 30 years, and I've written 50 books. It is almost like riding a bicycle now. It's relatively easy to do.

Bloomberg: What do you like reading?

Parker: I read Elmore Leonard, and I don't really read any other crime fiction. My life is spent, every day, for much of a day, in a world of fiction. And when I get through doing that, I have no brain left for fiction. I'll read some nonfiction, and I'll read the newspaper, and I'll watch a ball game, but I don't read very much fiction anymore.

Bloomberg: How does your working day go?

Parker: I write 10 pages a day. When I'm done with it that day, it's what you see on the printed page. Maybe the spelling is improved or the punctuation changed, but essentially you're looking at my first draft. I don't do a second draft.

No Research

Bloomberg: Do you do research?

Parker: No, I've never ridden in a police car. I've never been inside Boston Police headquarters. The cops I meet, they all say the same thing: ``What you get right is the relationship between the cops and the robbers, between the good guys and the bad guys, who are not so different from each other.''

Bloomberg: You served in the army during the Korean War; did anything you see there motivate your crime writing?

Parker: No, I wasn't in combat. I was a radio operator over there after the truce. No, I probably got my inclinations through various subtle psychological motivations deriving from my mother.

Baseball

Bloomberg: Is your Irish-American family the reason you consider your novel, ``All Our Yesterdays,'' about three generations of Irish-American cops in Boston, to be your best?

Parker: Yes, I am of Irish descent. My mother was a Murphy. And so it was comfortable for me to write that book. When you make the best cake you ever made, you know it. The other best one, I think, is ``Double Play,'' a baseball novel about the racism Jackie Robinson confronted when he was the first African- American player in major league baseball.

Bloomberg: In terms of minority portrayals, the occasional gay characters in your books are realistically depicted, and you've said that because your two sons, Daniel and David, are gay, you gained an insight into the gay community.

Parker: Watching those two grow up, I know the deal. Both my sons are performers. We often go to the West coast to see Dan act. We come to New York to see David dance with his Bang Group, for which he choreographs as well. He'll be performing at the Dance Theater Workshop this December -- plug, plug!

Design for Living

Bloomberg: You and your wife live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on two different floors of the same house.

Parker: I live on the first floor; she lives on the second floor. The third floor is apartment space for when one or the other of my children comes home.

Bloomberg: How does that work?

Parker: We went through a lot of effort to make it work. We separated in 1982 for two years, and wrestled with the thing like a squirrel with a coconut for that time. When we got together again, we decided that our best bet was not to try and live right up against each other all the time.

So, for a while, she lived in one town and I in another, and then, in one apartment and I in another, and then we bought this house. It's her house, and I live in a couple of small rooms in it. My office and my bedroom are mine. The rest of the house, which is about 15 rooms, is hers.

Bloomberg: What do you do for leisure outside those two rooms?

Parker: Leisure? Surely you jest. Well, I like to be with Joan. I work out nearly every day. I do a lot of Pilates, and I think I might try yoga. We dine out together. I like to watch ball games. She doesn't. That's one of the reasons she lives upstairs.

Plumber's Block

Bloomberg: You once said that you wonder why plumbers never come down with plumber's block. Are writers just like any other manual laborers?

Parker: No, they're not. But I am impatient with people who talk about how they sweat blood when they're trying to write a paragraph. Elmore Leonard says that writer's block is another word for lazy. And I have never had writer's block. Now, you know, other people do. So, get over it, push through it. It's a pretty good job.

Last Updated: October 26, 2004 00:10 EDT