I also think the stagnation comes in part because there’s never any continuity. Stephanie accepts a job for Ranger in one book, then in the next book she needs money so she accepts a job from Ranger, and then in the next book she needs money so she accepts a job from Ranger… And then there’s the on and off with Morelli. They’re broken up, then back together, then broken up… why not carry over the fact that she sometimes works fro Ranger and let that play out? Why not let her stay off with Morelli for a couple of books in a row? It feels like groundhog’s day. Or worse, like playing the very first Nintendo system, where every time you die, you go back to level 1-1, no matter how far you were. That gets boring after a while.

As for Evanovich’s deal… Publishing accounting is hard to explain, but it’s like this. Say you have six checking accounts. Four of them are making money. Two of them are in the red. It doesn’t matter how much money you have in the first four. If the two in the red are in the red, they’re in the red. Evanovich sells a lot of books. Her books 1-13 make a lot of money. But her publisher lost money on the last two, and is probably losing money on this one. her last deal also included only 2 plum books. The other 2 books were Diesel books. I imagine this new deal was set the same way. That kind of money on an unproven series (the Unmentionable books aren’t even released yet and already the feedback is that they are not good) is a bad move for hte publisher. She would get her money, sure, but they would never see a dime of theirs. That’s a lot of money to throw away.