Terry Shames--Guilt Strikes at Granger's Store

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Every writer of a long-running series at some point is faced with a very ticklish question, and our Jungle Red friend and author of one of my favorite series (told you I'd be repeating that this week!), Terry Shames, whose new Samuel Craddock novel debuted this month, is here to address it.

TERRY SHAMES: With the tenth book in the Samuel Craddock series, Guilt Strikes at Granger’s Store,  coming out last week, I’ve been mulling over how long the series will run.

There’s a passage in “Guilt” in which Samuel Craddock is worried that his old friend Loretta Singletary is working too hard at the annual bake sale. He persuades two young women to help her. When she protests, Samuel says, “Loretta, let them do it. They want to.”

Her reply: “I know, but I’m afraid if they think I’m not capable anymore they’ll ease me out.”

Samuel thinks, “I know she’s right. We are getting to an age where we are afraid we’ll be redundant.”

In the eleventh book, which I’m working on now, Samuel has some self-doubt about whether he still has what it takes to investigate a crime, and his girlfriend, Wendy Gleason, is impatient because she wants to travel with him and wishes he would pack it in.

And yet, every time I consider Samuel’s retirement, another idea for a book pops up. And then I think about other long-running series, like Deborah Crombie’s Gemma James and Duncan Kincaid series, which has been running much longer than mine, and has only gotten better with time. One of my long-time fans just wrote that she thinks Guilt Strikes at Granger’s Store is the best yet! And here’s how Library Journal sums up the book in a starred review: “The Samuel Craddock series may be the best regional crime series around today. This installment is no exception”

With a review like that, I’m just not ready to pack it in with Samuel.

When I started the series, I deliberately chose an older protagonist because I was tired of reading crime novels in which a jaded detective knocks on a door and “a little old lady” or “little old man” comes to the door…and the detective thinks, “she must be at least sixty.” Really! I wanted an older protagonist to model how an older person can be vital mentally and physically. Slyly, as the series has gone on, I have aged other characters, but miraculously Samuel stays approximately the same age.

And then I think about not just Samuel, but my own age creeping up on me. Yikes! How long can I keep this up? I have a new series coming out next spring, the Jessie Madison series, featuring a young woman who is a dive instructor who gets in trouble in the Bahamas. In subsequent books she will be a part of the FBI dive team. My mind is buzzing with ideas for this new series. Am I up to the rigors of writing two series? Not to mention a standalone that’s now out on submission? I picture myself on my death bed, with a doctor ready to “unplug me” and me yelling, “Wait! Let me get just one more paragraph written.”

Okay, I challenge all you writers of  a “certain age” to tell me you haven’t had similar thoughts. I certainly have as I see authors in their twenties and thirties being touted in reviews, seeing their photos and thinking, “Oh dear, they’re SO young.” And they’re writing great books! Should I step aside?

But then I remember an interview with “the Boss,” the incomparable Bruce Springsteen. The interviewer asked him how long he thought he could continue to perform. His reply was, “There may come a time when I can’t do it any longer. But not tonight.”  That’s become my mantra. There may be a time when I will quietly close my computer…but not today.

DEBS: My response when Terry told me what she was writing about was a horrified, "Oh no! You can't retire Samuel!!" And I feel the same way about my series.

REDs and writer friends, do you wrestle with this? And readers, is there a favorite series you feel has ended too soon?

Terry Shames writes the popular, award-winning Samuel Craddock series, set in small-town Texas. Kirkus reviews said, "A favorite of fans who like their police procedurals with a strong ethical center." Mystery People has twice named Shames one of the top five mystery authors. She is on the board of Mystery Writers of America and a member of Sisters in Crime. She lives in Southern California with her husband, Monty the dog, and Max the cat.

DEBS: Here's more about GUILT STRIKES AT GRANGER'S STORE: 

Mark Granger, son of he elderly owner, is warned not to renovate Granger’s Feed Store, but he ignores the warning and is attacked. When a stranger, Michael Sullivan, is shot in the store’s back room and a fire is set to conceal his body, Jarrett Creek Chief of police Samuel Craddock starts looking for motives. Who is determined to stop the renovation, and why? Then the construction crew ripping up the floor finds a long-dead body, taking Craddock deep into the past where he unearths explosive secrets stretching back thirty years.