Lilian Jackson Braun. Her first few Cat Who... books were pretty good mysteries, but then they started revolving more and more about the people in the town where the sleuthing cat lived with his human, and less and less about mysterious goings-on (usually murder), which became ever more insubstantial.

Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake books started out as pretty good urban fantasy and degenerated into bad porn.

Definitely Janet Evanovich!

And though I will admit Nora Roberts gets repetitive, I still enjoy her books.

Daniel Silva I've read everything he's written...up to and including his 2014 "The Heist"...but...I simply can't stand another Gabriel adventure. IMO...Silva has squeezed every ounce of character legitimacy he can out of this man and he either needs to move on to another hero...or abandon the theme altogether.

Did we mention Danielle Steel ?

Also, Alan Bradley and the Flavia deLuce mysteries. The first book was precociously clever and enjoyable. The books that followed seemed to always involve a child's murder or death and that put me off them permanently. Also the idea that an 11 year old girl could be that smart and adult-like was unbelievable.

I thought McCaffrey's Pern series ran out of spark. I finally stopped reading them after she let the Masterharper die, even though I actually bought a couple more after that. I would open the cover, but put them down after 2 or 3 pages.

I never did warm up to the Flavia deLuce series. I read at least 2 of them, because so many people seemed to enjoy them, but Flavia as a character just didn't do it for me.

Donnamira, I lost interest in the Pern books when they stopped being science fantasy and turned into science fiction. My mother continued reading them for a while after that, but said the quality deteriorated pretty fast.

A harder challenge: Name a series writer who has not yet run out of steam. ;^)

Hmmmm--- possibly Louise Penny? Definitely Susan Hill (mystery writer).

I've already suggested Sue Grafton as a writer who kept her series lively and engaging so I'll stand by that one. Of course, she is no longer living.

How about P D James? Although she's no longer amongst the living...she was prolific right up to the end.

Jacqueline Winspear.......her Maisie books are always good reads ( 13 ?)

Donna Leon's marvelous series set in Venice has never run out of steam.

Good examples! I was beginning to think they all run out of steam eventually. Which, actually, would be understandable.

Ilona Andrews hasn't lost steam -- her Kate Daniels series (which just wrapped up at #10) was terrific and her shorter sets of books (the Edge books, the Innkeeper Chronicles) are terrific. On the other hand, Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson series has pretty much run its course, IMO. She's tried to reboot with her last book by adding new characters and locales, so we'll see if that helps.

I love the Alan Banks series written by Peter Robinson, and feel that he has kept up the story telling. I have the series, except for his latest one,which I will have to get soon.

It appears that Susanna Kearsley is also another author who has kept her stories fresh and exciting as evidenced by the reader reviews.

Usually I'm a lurker, but this topic called out to me!

NOT run out of steam:

Lippman, Laura - Tess Monaghan series

Cleeves, Ann - both the Jimmy Perez and Vera Stanhope series

Connelly, Michael - both the Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller series

White, Kate - Bailey Weggins

HAS run out of steam:

Cornwell, Patricia - Kay Scarpetta

George, Elizabeth - Inspector Lynley series

Welcome miteymo !

Great additions.....and I completely agree with your two at the end.

Yes, it's kind of sad as I was a BIG fan of both Elizabeth George and Patricia Cornwell. I tried a couple of their most recent novels and, well, the magic is gone- at least for me.

I wonder which authors we'd name whose first book was a " swing and a miss" .

Good question. I'm going to have to ponder that one!

Welcome, Miteymo. Glad you decided to post something. The more the merrier.

Did Catherine Cookson run out of steam ?

Jean Plaidy aka Victoria Holt certainly seemed like she did.

I had forgotten Victoria Holt/Jean Plaidy. I think she ran out of steam as Holt, then rebooted as Plaidy. That it worked for a while until she ran out of steam again. So she got two reasonable runs. Not a bad strategy. She used several other pseudonyms as well, but I never read anything of those. She certainly wrote a LOT of books.

Wow, after a quick google ....she was Eleanor HIbert Burford and wrote as :

Jean Plaidy for fictionalized history of European royalty; Victoria Holt for gothic romances, and Philippa Carr for a multi-generational family saga. A literary split personality, she also wrote light romances, crime novels, murder mysteries and thrillers under the various pseudonyms including Eleanor Burford, Elbur Ford, Kathleen Kellow, Anna Percival, and Ellalice Tate.

Wow is right! I bet her heirs are still enjoying her income.

I wonder if Anita Shreve is one who has run out of steam. I had really liked some of her early novels, such as "The Pilot's Wife" . The last one I read by her lacked considerably the former "magic" to suck me in.

yoyo, amazing about Jean Plaidy et al . . . . I am able to check into the 1911 census (the last one available for public access) and found Eleanor Alice Burford living in Canning Town with parents, grandparents and sister. Burke St is deep in the old East End of London and her father's job is given as railway 'plate layer' possibly on the Victoria Docks. Surprising that someone from such a deprived area managed to get on so well! Most of the streets were devastated by WWII bombing and the only building from Plaidy's day is an abandoned pub.

The area is close to where Call the Midwife was set.

Huntingdon Arms Canning Town

So interesting Vee .

Sandra Brown

Old RPers will know me as a fan of Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. Despite the fact that her main series, The Morland Dynasty, ran to 35 books, I think the standard was great to the end. She has a new series, covering WWI, and that is also very good.

I'm another who gave up on Elizabeth George, although I loved her early work, but I never got very far with Sue Grafton and Patricia Cornwell because I got sick of the MC very quickly in both cases.

i just finished an Elizabeth George book and was grumping along about what a LONG novel it was, etc. and why was this other story in there now and then. Until the last few chapters answered my question. Good book, although still too long.

I still do like Elizabeth George, except for What Came Before He Shot Her. That could have been a short chapter in the preceding book. Even better, she could have let her live.

34, Astrokath? And never ran out of steam? That's amazing. I'm going to give the first in the series a try. I'm not a huge reader of historical fiction, but I think it's worth the experiment. I just downloaded the first volume, and wonders never cease, it is only 99¢ on Amazon.

Rose, for 99c give it a go! The early books in the series cover more years - as it progressed we got more and more in-depth look at the history, which is probably based on the fact that we know more about more modern times.

Kath, I'll let you know what I think. I'm just a couple of pages into it at this point. If I like it, well, it's always good to know that there are more enjoyable books waiting to be read.

I've just finished Till the Boys Come Home in Cynthia H-E's War at Home series. I think this one (the 5th) is the last of these--at least the war (WWI) is over. I really, really like her books.

Should we put Louise Penny on this list ? Do her books all begin to feel like the same story tweaked and retold ?

Yes, I just commented on the other thread on Penny, agreeing with Astrokath.

I would still like to hang out in Three Pines, eat at the restaurant and the bakery, and shop in the bookstore.

Perhaps any author who writes a lot of books in a series or genre becomes repetitive. After all, how many ways can you write a murder mystery /thriller .

Bon, I think the same is true for long-running TV shows, too. My husband and I watched the original CSI series every week for a long time, but eventually the crimes were just getting too ridiculous (dead scuba diver in a tree in the desert) or too dark and we gave up on it. The same with Bones - we didn't even watch the last season because the serial killer was just too disturbing.

Donna

Msmeow, how intriguing! What was the solution to the scuba diver mystery?

I can't watch shows with scenes that are shot at night. If I have to peer at the screen, that is too hard on my eyes.

Ann, it's been a long time, but IIRC the guy was scuba diving in Lake Mead (outside Las Vegas) and something caused his oxygen tank to blow up, blowing him out of the water and into the tree.

Donna

Donna, thanks for that! The ingenuity of scriptwriters is boundless!

I particularly like "Death in Paradise" a British TV series which concentrates on "locked room" mysteries. So far I haven't got bored, although there are numerous deaths on one small island or in the immediate area! The staff at the Ste. Marie police station changes which helps maintain the interest and keeps the series fresh.

I love British detective TV series in general. I really enjoyed "Wycliffe", for example, as well as "New Tricks". Now, I'm watching an excellent Danish detective series: "Ornen" (The Eagle).

Another fan of Death in Paradise here. It is certainly not the most original show; in fact it is written to a consistent pattern. But I throughly enjoy following along the familiar path to see just how is that they will vary it this time. It is like comfort food to me. And the setting is gorgeous.

For me, Nicholas Sparks should just stop writing and use all his millions from books and movies to do something different.

If resorting to formulaic stories, set out to deliberately and unashamedly evoke emotions of love and loss and brokenness and healing, etc etc, with slight twists that go this way and that, means the author ran out of steam, then that is surely Sparks.

Sooz.....absolutely !

I've got to add Martha Grimes to the "lost the magic" for me. Her early Jury books were a joy, but then she sauntered off on the Emma Graham series (Hotel Paradise, etc) as well as another new new series. After reading the synopsis on Fantastic Fiction, I had no interest in them at all!

Additionally Stephen King has gone by the wayside for me. I stopped reading him years ago. My husband seems to think he's rediscovered his muse in both 11/22/1963 and Dr. Sleep, but I don't agree.