Spenser, the highly stereotyped detective in Robert B. Parker's series, eats his way through almost every mystery, set mainly in Boston. The atmosphere – and the food -- offers a big contrast to Hillerman’s southwest.

In Playmates, Spenser’s job is to investigate a college sports scandal; he establishes the terms of the investigation over several lunches and dinners with college officials and the coach. Next morning, the investigation continues as Spenser has breakfast with the basketball player suspected of manipulating the score. Since Spenser ate johnny cakes that morning before leaving his girlfriend's apartment, at the restaurant he takes only coffee. Therefore, he can be an observer while the player eats "four fried eggs, over easy, two orders of bacon, home fries, four pieces of white toast, two large orange juices, and two containers of milk." (p. 37)

Another version of this scene takes place in Walking Shadow: an interviewee eats pancakes while Spenser just has coffee (p. 86). During this story, he and his partner also end up hanging out at a muffin shop where they choose from "blueberry, bran, corn, banana, carrot, pineapple, orange, cherry," and around 10 other flavors. (Shadow, p. 94)

When Spenser and his cohorts act like ordinary cops, of course they go for coffee and donuts (Shadow, pp. 77, 131). Predictable stereotypes and brand names dominate Parker's writing. Throughout each story it's eat, eat, eat, (with occasional breaks at a bar for a drink) always with Spenser showing his delicacy and sophistication no matter how crude or how refined the dining establishment!

Spenser's gourmet tastes are always contrasted with the indifference to food and cooking shown by his girlfriend, the elegant and refined Susan. For example, while he experimented with cooking the johnny cakes in Playmates, she was sipping coffee; her picky eating reveals her character in book after book. Her refrigerator is always bare, unless Spenser does the shopping at a convenient gourmet market; he especially likes the market at Boston's Fanuil Hall.

Above all, Spenser shows his virtue by his choice of food. Sometimes it's subtle, sometimes not: "I looked at my cold seafood assortment. I looked at Healy's steak. I was glad I wasn't eating it. I was glad I was eating cold seafood. Cold seafood was virtuous." (Shadow, p. 221)

The food details are consistent with Parker's very mannered style. Unlike other fast-moving detective stories, Parker's stories don't emphasize violence — in Playmates, the sympathetic characters are never hurt or killed, the only deaths are a guilty basketball player who is never "onstage" and a number of hired hit men, shot instantly when they attack Spenser. It's all a part of Parker's post-modern extension of the hard-boiled detective story.

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