New York Lawyer Linda Fairstein has more than a dozen crime novels to her credit. In her Alexandra Cooper mysteries Fairstein draws on her own controversial two decade career as head of Manhattan's sex crime unit. Assistant DA Cooper, her central character, works alongside detectives Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, members of the NY police department. Cooper is plain spoken and, in Fairstein's latest, Terminal City, increasingly and inexplicably, weak and dependent. Camilleri and Leon permit their detectives erudition. Fairstein takes another direction with her trio in Terminal City, permitting them to learn, along with the reader, the history of New York’s Grand Central Terminal. Fairstein has made a savvy choice of setting and plot. Grand Central, according to Travel and Leisure Magazine, makes the list of the world's top ten tourist attractions. The terminal’s history, complete with miles of dank underground tunnels, gives the book atmosphere and a satisfying plot. 

Canadian Louise Penny gives her loyal fans an end of summer treat with the publication of her tenth Chief Inspector Armand Gamache police procedural, The Long Way Home. Penny sets these deeply psychological stories in the cozy rural village of Three Pines, the town of our dreams where rewarding friendships thrive amidst bistro, bookstore, and charming village green — alongside evil, illness, and revenge.

Penny, like her mystery series colleagues, never strays from established formulas. Nevertheless, her books remain fresh through an adroit mixing of longstanding characters — Gamache, Jean Guy, Clara, and Myrna — with new faces, fodder for Penny's perceptive character studies, observations often filtered through lines of poetry.

Will the series flag? Probably, but in The Long Way Home Penny continues to provide a good read.

Mystery series offer the happy expectation of joining up with an old friend for a bit of adventure. The lasting success of a series depends upon the balance of the known and predictable with fresh, rich plots, new characters, and sustained good writing. It is the wise mystery writer who brings her series to an end before imagination fades, thin plotting desecrates and together they become literary killers.

©2014 Jill Norgren for SeniorWomen.com              

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