In August, I cruised through just about all the Harlan Coben books involving Myron Bolitar. May I mention a couple of great things about series? First of all, when you find an author who has written a bunch of titles about the same characters, it means you have a bunch of reading to enjoy. No worse than watching CSI every week.

Even better, you can crank through a bunch in a row and get a panoramic view of a character. A lot of time, the characters are so simplistic, or the authors are clearly feeling their way, so that it takes four or five books for the main characters to really develop in interesting ways.

I guess Travis McGee is the paradigm for that. MacDonald wrote some great books, but McGee has an essential sameness for decades, even after everything he goes through. But the cool thing is that when that pattern has been established, when it has been hammered into your understanding, it makes books like The Green Ripper explode into you like fascination grenades. For at least two books before that, McDonald was setting up McGee for a pleasant and satisfying happy ending, and then he blows his whole life up.

Fluctuating between leaving the characters happy and blowing up their lives seems to happen to a lot of series writers. McGee is one example, but I can spin off a bunch of examples right away.

Like Spenser. Robert B. Parker's Spenser is a more interesting, weird character than McGee from the very first book (The Godwulf Manuscript). And things happen to Spenser, he evolves. But he hits the life blows up part of his over all arc in the 12th book in the series, A Catskill Eagle. And since then, he's gone through 20 more books. Some good, some only OK, but the stakes have never seemed as high as in Eagle.
Back to Coben. His hero Myron Bolitar blows to pieces around book six, I think. Part of the problem is that, I can’t tell the books apart by just their titles.

If I remember right, Dennis Lehane went five books before he blew up his Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro characters. Maybe just 4, with 5 being chock full of aftermath

Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch hasn't blown up yet, but I think that's because he's got so little to blow up. I mean, if Bosch were living in an SRO like Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder used to, with nothing more than a few jazz records and suits, I don't think the novels would be significantly different. Though having his ex appear with a kid is at least changing things somewhat. Reminiscent of Travis McGee’s suddenly appearing daughter in The Lonely Silver Rain, a book only worth reading because it clearly seems to be heading toward McGee's suicide until his never-before-hinted-at daughter appears. Though since Connelly is alive, Bosch gets to keep evolving.

I have to note a nice reversal of the Blow Up, in the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child. I can't say as I liked these novels too much, because reading them in about a week was a bit too relentlessly the same old thing. And the book that is most different from the others is the first one I read, The Enemy, which is a flashback to Reacher's days in the Army. And that's where he had his Blow Up, form which the series is basically aftermath.

All these guys are working the Chandler street (except for Child, who feels more Spillane and Ian Fleming influenced): "But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid." Fine with me. I personally think The Long Goodbye is probably the most important American novel of the 20th Century, and would be willing to argue it's also the best. But that's another day.

John D. MacDonald: Travis McGee, Ft. Lauderdamndale houseboat living, "recovery expert" and ladies' man.

Harlan Coben: Myron Bolitar, hyper sports agent.

Michael Connelly: Harry Bosch, depressed LA cop

Dennis Lehane: Patrick Kenzie/Angela Gennaro, Boston PIs with lots of personality

Robert B. Parker: Spenser, one-named immortal Boston PI

Lee Child: Jack Reacher, drifter and killing machine

Lawrence Block: Matthew Scudder, NYC alcoholic detective

Other readable series:

John Sandford: Lucas Davenport, speed crazed Minneapolis cop
(Prey) novels

Robert Crais: Elvis Cole, LA private detective with lots of personality