Today, Detectives Beyond Borders ' Peter Rozovsky asks:
What novels or stories simply could not be set anywhere else? What novels or stories that emphasize their settings could, nonetheless, work if transplanted to a new location? What, in other words, does setting mean to you? What constitutes good setting in fiction, crime fiction or otherwise? ...What authors do you say are most inextricably bound up with their settings?
I commented, bringing up Robert B. Parker's third Spenser novel, Mortal Stakes, in which the Boston private eye discovers star Red Sox pitcher Marty Rabb is being blackmailed. This was the only Spenser he wrote in which a real sports team featured prominently in the plot, yet it connected Spenser and Boston such that Parker didn't have to devote as much time or attention to setting in subsequent books.
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