Following the surprise cancellation of the hit series Spenser: For Hire, ABC produced four full-length movies starring the late Robert Urich as the wisecracking-but-deadly Boston detective. Avery Brooks (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) co-stars as Hawk in these television events based on the best-selling books by Robert B. Parker that The New York Times calls "one of the great series in the history of the American detective story."