I'm a big mystery fan, and like most genre readers I am always pleased when I find an author whose work I like because this means I have hours of enjoyable reading ahead of me. I just finished books by two long-time favorite authors, Sue Grafton and Marcia Muller. Grafton is now up to T in her alphabet series, and Muller's been publishing a book a year for a long time. But I was bored by both T is for Trespass and Burn Out. The characters don't feel fresh, and the plots dragged along.
I got to thinking about other authors whose work I no longer read. I loved Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series when it first came out, but Plum's inability to choose between bad boy Ranger and Joe the cop finally did me in. I enjoyed J.A.Jance, but haven't read one of hers in years. Ditto for Earl Emerson. I've also given up on Robert Parker. Spenser and Hawk are beginning to seem like cartoon characters, and I'm sick of Susan Silverman and her dainty eating habits.
Some of you undoubtedly still love these authors, or are discovering them for the first time--and I'm glad, because I loved them once, too. I haven't stopped reading mysteries, and next post I'll talk about some of the authors I still like or have just discovered.
