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For the moment, though, I still like looking at the world through his eyes. If my doctor said donвЂ™t go booking any holidays after November, I know how I would choose to end the series.

Books like jack reacher series#

Plot is what characters do and language is the expression of that, and so for a mystery series what keeps people coming back is the pleasure of spending time with those characters. They donвЂ™t вЂ“ the plots really donвЂ™t change much. ThereвЂ™s a misapprehension about mystery fiction, which is that people read for plot. Robicheaux is into his early 70s, so the books become meditations on mortality.ДЄs the characters age, the nuances, the textures of the books change.

The other option is to do what somebody like James Lee Burke has done with Robicheaux, who ages with the writer effectively. You can take the Patricia Cornwell route, which is to keep your characters a certain age all the way through but the series canвЂ™t really develop if you do that because youвЂ™re just going to keep repeating certain tropes, the character is set in aspic. For me the big thing was letting the characters grow older. The spark for Charlie Parker was an image of a man going to visit the grave of his wife and child, flowers in the back of the car. In that last book, heвЂ™s really finished.вЂќ But what of todayвЂ™s detectives? How do their authors co-exist with their characters over years вЂ“ sometimes decades вЂ“ and what lies ahead? but it will not be possible to recover Montalbano. To avoid any such reversals, the late Andrea Camilleri wrote the final novel in his Inspector Montalbano series 14 years ago, giving it to his publisher for safekeeping: вЂњWhen I get fed up with him or am not able to write any more, IвЂ™ll tell the publisher: publish that book. Readers were distraught the author quietly rejoiced вЂ“ вЂњI hold that it was not murder, but justifiable homicide in self-defence, since, if I had not killed him, he would certainly have killed meвЂќ вЂ“ but by 1903, heвЂ™d resurrected him, with fans discovering in a new short story that Holmes hadnвЂ™t really died вЂ“ heвЂ™d merely been fooling his enemies. Christie kills off Poirot in Curtain, and Conan Doyle did his best to wave farewell to Holmes, sending him plummeting to his doom down the Reichenbach Falls. Then thereвЂ™s the question of how, or indeed whether, to draw a series to a close. Twenty years ago, though, вЂњpeople would write to me and say, cвЂ™mon, that wouldnвЂ™t happen. Sara Paretsky sees crime fiction as the form вЂњwhere law, justice and society come together in a natural way вЂ“ that is, you can write about them without being polemical or didacticвЂќ.Д¬hild says his plots have always вЂњincluded corrupt, negligent and deficient police departments and federal agenciesвЂќ. For me, a conception of social justice lies at the very heart of the genre.вЂќ вЂњThe police represent the law, but the private eye represents the possibility of justice, particularly for those for whom the forces of law and order refuse to stand up: women, minorities, immigrants.

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, John Connolly argues that вЂњa mistrust of the police вЂ“ a mistrust of the establishment, really вЂ“ runs through the private eye genreвЂќ. How do authors coexist with their characters over years вЂ“ sometimes decades вЂ“ and what lies ahead? As Attica Locke says of her Texas ranger in her Highway 59 series, вЂњwriting a cop is something I thought IвЂ™d never doвЂќ. Is it best to age a hero in real time вЂ“ Ruth Rendell had Inspector Wexford still solving crimes in his retirement вЂ“ or to let the world move on but keep your hero young, as Patricia Cornwell does with Kay Scarpetta, who remains around 40 years old for ever ? And how does the character develop as social mores change? Writing about police can be a challenge now.

Books like jack reacher how to#

As time passes in the real world, the writer has to decide how to deal with a fictional timeline. winding him up for good,вЂќ he told his mother.Д¬reating a long-running series featuring a much-loved character can be both a blessing and a curse. By 1938, Agatha Christie had grown entirely sick of Hercule Poirot, asking: вЂњWhy did I ever invent this detestable bombastic, tiresome little creature? Eternally straightening things, eternally boasting, eternally twirling his moustache and tilting his egg-shaped head.вЂќ And nearly 50 years earlier, Arthur Conan Doyle was equally wearied by Sherlock Holmes: вЂњI think of slaying Holmes.

HeвЂ™s not the first to tire of his most famous creation. вЂњIвЂ™ve been doing it 24 years now and I couldnвЂ™t do it any more,вЂќ says Lee Child as he hands over the reins of his Jack Reacher series to his brother Andrew Grant.