Ah, Boston, You’re My Home

Beantown Eyes

As settings go in the Shamus Game, Boston was never really a contender, overshadowed by Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City and Chicago. And then came Spenser, and this cold gray city full of flinty-eyed Irish gangsters, Dunkin’-drinking yobs and bleeding-heart liberals bouncing around in the shadow of history was suddenly full of private dicks.

• Spenser by Robert B. Parker
• Thomas Dreddiker ‘Dred’ Balcazar by Ned White
• Thomas Banacek by Anthony Wilson
• Tom Bethany by Jerome Doolittle
• Harvey Blissberg by Richard Rosen (Cambridge)
• Carlotta Carlyle by Linda Barnes
• Flashgun Casey by George Harmon Coxe
• Dennis Chase (21 Beacon Street) by Leonard Heideman
  
• Brady Coyne by William G. Tapply
• Tommy Crane by Richard Helms
• John Francis Cuddy by Jeremiah Healy
• Brian Desmond by Kelly Lawrence
• Jack Fenner by George Harmon Coxe
• Anne Fitzgerald by James Patterson
• Max Hale by George Harmon Coxe
• James P. Hillton, Sophia Blossom & Madeleine V. LaCroix by Andrew McAleer
• Julius Katz & Archie by Dave Zeltserman
• Patrick Kenzie & Angela Gennaro by Dennis Lehane
• Knightsbridge by Conall Ryan
• Ruth Law by Ken Liu
• A. Dunster Lowell (The Boston Terrier) by Blake Edwards
• Fina Ludlow by Ingrid Thoft
• Angie Matelli by Wendi Lee
• James Maxfield Mallory by Richard C. Smith
• Delray McCauley by Richard Marinick (South Boston)
• Harry McGraw (The Law and Harry McGraw) by Peter S. Fischer
• Ace Mifflin (Jazz Age Chronicles) by Ted Slampyak
• Kent Murdock by George Harmon Coxe
• Nason Nichols by Maynard F. Thomson
• Sunny Randall by Robert B. Parker
• Andy Roark by Peter Colt
• Jack Thibault and Buddy Margolies by David Edgerly Gates
  Two separate characters; what unites them is the references to other Boston fictional characters, especially Spenser, in their stories.
• Emma Victor by Mary Wings
• Nick and Holly West by Joan H. Parker and Robert B. Parker
• Harry Tolland by Russell DuPont (Southie)

Preliminary list compiled by Kevin Burton Smith. Suggestions and comments are welcome.