This weekend in The Washington Post (but online now), mystery author Laura Lippman writes about "knowing when to say when". As in when to continue with a series character and when to move on.
Lippman is the author of the popular Tess Monaghan mysteries, the first of which, Baltimore Blues, was published in 1997. She is also the author of a number of non-series (stand-alone) mysteries. Arguably, she says, her stand-alones are more successful and better reviewed than her Tess Monaghan books, leading some to suggest she abandon Tess altogether.
"The conventional wisdom," she says, "is that writers must choose between series or stand-alones. Only a handful of crime novelists get to do both, and, for some reason, I'm one of them, at least for now. When other writers ask me how I managed this feat, I fall back on a joke: The trick, I tell them, is to not be too successful at either."
But that's hardly the case here. Lippman's mantel is full of awards for her mysteries, winning all the major awards (the Edgar, the Agatha, the Nero, twice winning the Shamus and three times the Anthony) for both her series and non-series books.
For her, she says, it's all about balance. And that suggests we'll continue to see Tess in future books, albeit interspersed with stand-alones she calls her suburban noir novels.
Lippman's most recent book, Life Sentences, published earlier this year, is one of the latter.
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