I’m thinking of series like larry blocks burglar series or Donald westlakes dortmunder series or harry harrisons stainless steel rat books
Its the same plot for almost every book … but you like the characters and atmosphere so you keep reading them …
in the burglar series Bernie breaks into a house and theres a dead body inside or someone gets killed while hes there and hes gotta save himself or find out who killed who and why
dortmunder was him and his friend try some big but really harmless crime and they screw it up in comicial fashion and have to save themselves …
although most of his books were different louis l’amour books were the basically westerns but he was so good with the chracters and setings I read them anyways …
Yeah, Westlake for me also. The Parker series (written under the Richard Stark pseudonym) especially.
Then there’s Robert Crais. Elvis Cole and Joe Pike seem like a very real duo, and I enjoy reading their exploits regardless of what mystery is being solved.
I’ve begun re-reading Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter mysteries as a summer alternative to my usual fare of (mostly) history. I’d read most of them–& saw both Lord Peter series on Masterpiece over the years. Why read a mystery when you probably know who dun it? Because Lord Peter is an amusing fellow–with depths beneath that silly British fop exterior. I don’t blame Sayers for falling in love with him. Interesting secondary characters, too. Bunter is almost as fine a butler as Jeeves. (And those Jeeves & Bertie Wooster stores are as a substantial as marshmallows–but worth re-reading.)
Oh, the final Temeraire novel came out in June. I’ve enjoyed the author’s World With Dragons; she worked out different solutions for different cultures. But, mostly, Temeraire is a charming dragon & his Laurence is a worthy hero.
That’s what I was thinking! I finished the last Temeraire book earlier this week. My wife asked if it was good, and I said, “Y’know, Temeraire and Laurence fight Napoleon and meet dragons from other cultures. Oops, sorry, spoiler!” But you’re absolutely right that the two protagonists are so much fun (as are the other dragons) that it’s worth reading.
Game of Thrones kind of falls into that category for me. The plot at this point is so insanely convoluted that I sort of float along its surface and don’t worry too much about the details; mostly I read for Arya and Tyrion chapters.
The whole genre of Cozy Mysteries. The plot of all of them is pretty much the same: A woman is always finding dead bodies. She usually lives alone, owns a business, has a pet and a homicide detective boyfriend who is the stupidest homicide detective who ever existed. Said woman either realizes who the murderer is confronts them alone, or finds herself alone with a person and realizes they are the murder.
Elvis Cole and Joe Pike, absolutely! A great team.
Many characters in many series, after a while the stories kind of fade and I appreciate just reading about my old friends: Kinsey Milhone, Sue Grafton’s P.I. of the 80’s; Dave Robicheaux and his cohorts, in James Lee Burke’s Louisiana detective series; and it’s been a while since I read an Elizabeth George doorstop, but her British detectives seem sometimes a lot more interesting than the mystery sub-plots.
Lots of examples - one of my favorites is Joe Lansdale’s Hap and Leonard series of East Texan Gothic sort-of Detective novels.
The plots tend to be very similar: the two buddies are up against some really nasty bad guys, and soon the bullets will be a-flyin’.
What keeps me coming back is the reliably funny buddy-banter and characterization of the two heroes (the weary but always optimistically liberal straight white guy and his blood-brother, the cynical, right wing libertarian - and openly homosexual - Black guy). They are fun characters to hang with - they disagree about a lot, but you know they will always have each other’s backs.
Actually, among relatively long series of mystery novels featuring a series character, this sort of thing seems to be the rule, and the exception is the series you keep reading for the plots and not the characters (maybe Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, and John Dickson Carr would fall into this latter category).
Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books are this way. Plots are pretty much constructed of cardboard and wish-fulfillment (Stephanie eats as much fried chicken, birthday cake, and Italian subs as she wants without gaining any weight, and has two impossibly hot guys eager to give her toe-curlingly amazing sex whenever she desires), but you don’t read 'em for the stories. You read 'em for Lula and Grandma Mazur.
Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster stories you reread for the language: “He had flaxen hair, weak blue eyes, and the general demeanor of a saintly but timid codfish.” The man was unquestionably one of the master craftsmen of the English language.
I have read the three novels of William Gibson’s Bigend trilogy multiple times, simply out of fascination for the characters (especially Milgrim and Hollis Henry in Zero History).
The Maggody mysteries by Joan Hess. Hilarious stuff, though pretty formulaic, and the actual mystery always takes a back seat to the antics of the wacky characters. Unfortunately she seems to have abandoned the series; there hasn’t been a new one since 2010.
I see a theme here, which is what I came in to say. Detective series, either cops or PIs, are very largely followed for these same reasons. I’ll toss in John Sanders Lucas Davenport books, and Joan Hess’s Maggody series. But there are tons of them, maybe ALL the successful ones – I’ll have to give that some thought.
I disagree with this. The details of the crimes and criminal are different, but the manner of solution, the heart of police procedurals, remains the same, and for me, I read them more for the recurring characters as anything else.
Although the plots are definitely engaging, I found myself much more interested in the interactions between Maturin, Aubrey and the rest of the crew/personages in the various Aubrey-Maturin novels.
