Aka Rick Boyer. Richard Lewis Boyer (b. 1943 - ) is an American writer, best known for series of crime novels featuring Charlie "Doc" Adams, a dental surgeon in New England. His novel Billingsgate Shoal received the Edgar Award for best novel in 1983. Boyer was born in Evanston, Illinois. He majored in English at Denison University and earned an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Iowa, studying under Kurt Vonnegut. Boyer worked as a high school teacher, a sales representative for publishing company and taught English at Western Carolina University since 1988.