I forgot about Ellery Queen. I also read a few of the Grafton alphabet series but never really got into them. Maybe I’ll try again.
Judge Dee mysteries by Robert Van Gulik. They are a fun series and an interesting study of that era of China. A good read.
Napoleon Bonaparte mysteries which take place in Australia (I believe he goes to New Zealand once or twice) by Arthur Upfield. No, this has nothing to do with the French emperor. “Boney” as he is known, is a half caste (white/aboriginal) who uses his mixed-race status to solve mysteries. The last few are weak, but overall the series is great.
Technically, I am going to go afoul of the OP. The Mr. and Mrs. North series by Frances and Richard Lockridge has at least two (probably three) lead characters, Nick and Nora Charles, and police Lt. Weigend, but really the books revolve around Pam (the Mrs. of the series title) North. I just rediscovered them recently and am having a wonderful time rereading them.
I still read these as they come out. I’ve read lots of others that were trilogies or longer but are now "ended, so I don’t count those.
As a kid I was crazy about Walter R Brooks’ Freddy the Pig stories. So much so that I began writing embarrassingly shitty poetry.
Then came the John Carter books. I loved those tales, but ERB could really strain one’s suspension of disbelief.
Lastly, Henry Miller’s autobio stories. he could paint a picture of mundane human interactions like no other, but then launch into page after page of some kind of self indulgent spiritual mumbo jumbo that made me think he could have really used a good editor.
Sorry, it’s been a few years since I’ve read it, and I found it unmemorable, so I can’t be specific. All I remember is that in comparison to the other books, where Miles was fighting space pirates or preventing interplanetary war, the plot seemed so uninteresting that I kept thinking that she was just laying exceptionally long exposition before the main, exciting development occurred. I couldn’t really believe that nothing else was going to happen until I was almost finished.
Not only that, the dialog and narration seemed well below par (for Bujold, anyway). Her other books have a lot of humor in them; Cryoburn seemed IMO to just plod along.
But I’m glad you liked it, because Bujold is one of my favorite authors, and I’d hate to see her stop writing. I was very encouraged by how good the Captain Vorpatril book was.
Jack Vance’s books featuring rascal and ne’er-do-well Cugel the Clever.
I’ll go with Honor Harrington as a series based on a single character (obviously not including the myriad spin-offs). I liked Sandman Slim and Harry Dresden as well with their series…oh, and Atticus O’Sullivan in the Iron Druid series! Hm…yeah, there are a lot. My favorite is going to depend on what I’m reading right now. Currently I’m reading the 3rd book in the Man of War series, so my current favorite is Max Robichaux and Dr. Sahin.
John le Carré’s George Smiley. (I enjoy the writing more than the character, but the post-Smiley le Carré novels aren’t nearly as good.)
+++
Wikipedia shows 19 in the series which means I’ve probably missed a few. I always check Fiction-H in used bookstores, but almost never find Adam Hall. I thought it was because he was obscure, but he’s got three votes in this thread. (I’ve read one or two non-Quiller Elleston Trevor books; they were good but not like Quiller.)
I’ll add another vote for Flashman (whose sins were scarlet, but whose books are read) and for Ramage, but in the latter case there are a whole cast of recurring characters; Southwick the sailing master, loyal crewmen Jackson, Stafford and Rossi, various junior officers beginning with First Lieutenant Aitken, Bowen the chess-playing reformed alcoholic surgeon, the anonymous “Gunner” whom Ramage dislikes as inefficient and lacking initiative to the extent of never remembering his name, and Marine Lieutenant Renwick (sometimes spelled “Rennick”). Half the attraction of the stories lies in finding out what the cast are doing and saying this time, never mind what the actual plot is.
Something similar could be said for the J. T. Edson westerns, which ended up tailing off in over-stuffed poorly-edited reworks of earlier short stories, but he kept up the quality for at least the first fifty or sixty volumes, at least to “acceptable pulp western” standards, and which again were hung off a strong cast of regulars, chief of them Dusty Fog, the shrewd karate-fighting sabre-fencing criminal-savvy cow-punching bronco-busting fastest gun in Texas who was (AIUI) heavily based on Audie Murphy.
Dusty’s many talents allowed him to be the hero of diverse Wild West stories whether as a gun-fighter pure and simple, bossing up a trail drive, solving murder mysteries, taming lawless towns, helping the poor and downtrodden, spying, helping to bring peace with honour to the Comanche nation or (in his youth) serving as an honourable, principled officer of the Confederate States out of loyalty and political principle despite a personal dislike for slavery. I sneered at the blurb of the first of them I ever picked up (Trigger Fast) but found myself hooked within a dozen pages, and for some years afterwards read all I could get my hands on.
I just LOVE Ed McBains books, and there are dozens of them. I can’t help but think of NYPD Blue, which has to have been inspired by the 87th Precinct stories. The Deaf Man, their running super-smart nemesis, always making saps out of the cops! And I always picture Steve Carella being played by Steve Landesberg (from Barney Miller).
It seems rather that my reasons for liking the book, are yours for disliking it. I found it a refreshing change to see a new planet in the Nexus, and one which – by way of variation – is not a highly badass place, but a bit of a humdrum one, where the skulduggery is of a mostly non-violent kind. Dramatically dangerous and menacing locations make, of course, in the main more exciting theatres in which to unfold tales of adventure; but in a long series of books, the occasional pronounced change can be welcome. I’ve been getting a bit wearied by the great prominence (however understandable) in the series, of Jackson’s Whole – engaging though the Arquas in Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, are. And I, personally, was just fine with Cryoburn’s dialogue / narration.
We basically kind of concur, I think – any book needs someone to love it, unless it truly is flat-out dreadful; and “different strokes”, etc. I’ve seen suggestions that Bujold is feeling pretty much “written-out” as regards the Vorkosiverse, and that there may not be much more set on that scene; have also seen an indication, though, that she has one more “in the pipeline”, set thereon.
The Burke series by Andrew Vachss. If you like your series from the criminal point of view and are okay with sometimes disturbing subject matter, these are worth a read.
Me too, but I still like Corwin better because… you know. Corwin. I still remember picking up Nine Princes in Amber from the library as a high schooler and getting sucked in like falling into an open manhole.
I also love Vlad Taltos but I quit reading him because he started sucking. A common problem with this kind of extended series. (I’m talking to you, Stephanie Plum. Ugh. People still read the new ones?)
More than an indication – the next one is set to be published in February 2016.
I quite liked Cryoburn – it had lots of what this series does best, namely, smart, thoughtful explorations of the possible social consequences of medical technology, plus a gorgeously sad gut-punch at the end – but it and Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance both seem to come in for a fair amount of fannish dislike. Looking over the publication dates for the series, I’m wondering if this has to do with the long gap between installments; if you started reading any time between 2002 and 2010, Cryoburn and CVA are Those New Interlopers, the books that came later, and contradicted or complicated whatever private theories and expectations you had for the series.
(I don’t, personally, have this problem, since I just discovered the series last year. I wonder what I’ll think of the new one…)
I’m out of step with the general fandom, maybe (and I discovered the series 2005-odd) – the Vorkosiverse books with which I tend to have problems, are those earlier in the series: for me in the main, the longer it’s gone on, the better it’s got !
I’ll now be counting the weeks until Feb. 2016… Bujold does write novels in other settings than that where Miles, Ivan, and the rest strut their stuff: but I personally have tried a couple in one of such (the “Chalion” universe), and found them not awful, but not really my cup of tea. Giving them another go might, in time, be in order – in the absence of endless Vorkosigan material on which to mainline.
Another shout-out for the Parker series (24 novels) by Richard Stark (Donald Westlake). I’m also a fan of Max Allan Collins’ Nolan series (8 novels) which are really a pastiche of the Parker series.
I also enjoy a middle grade series of novels, The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place by Mary Rose Wood. Although its title refers to three children, the series is told through the eyes of their teenage governess. It’s very funny.
That’s the way I felt about her “Sharing Knife” books, to the point where I stopped reading them in the middle of the second one. But I think The Curse of Chalion might be my favorite fiction book of all time. I read it about once a year, and enjoy it every time, while I can’t think of any other book I’ve read more than a couple or three times. The second Chalion book was IMO good but not great, and I didn’t care for the third one at all. Go figure.
I also like The Spirit Ring, which AFAIK is the only book set in its universe.
I second all of the votes for LeCarre’s George Smiley novels;
for John D. McDonald’s Travis McGee’s series;
for Gregory McDonald’s Fletch series;
The Quiller series;
and in addition
Piet Van der Valk police procedurals by Nicholas Freeling;
Phillip Marlowe novels by Raymond Chandler (the best of all time;)
Lew Archer novels by Ross McDonald (the second best series of all-time;)
and my second favorite spy novelist Len Deighton who wrote three trilogies that all can be read independently or in sequence. Plus he wrote a tenth book called Winter which give a background on the characters and the story itself. This is tremendously pleasurable if you lived through the period in question as I did, but if you like intrigue, double, triple crosses, European locales and brilliant plotting you will love this series. The main character is British agent Bernard Sampson.
The first trilogy: Berlin Game; Mexico Set; London Match;
the second: Hook; Line; Sinker
the third: Faith; Hope; Charity
Deighton also created a nameless spy (called Harry Palmer in the movies and played by Michael Caine in 3 very good adaptations) who appeared in four novels which are very enjoyable but probably a little dated:
Funeral in Berlin
The Ipcress File
Billion Dollar Brain
Horse Under Water
I forgot all of the Arkady Renko novels by Martin Cruz Smith beginning with Gorky Park.