The Series Factor -- Old Friends by Sheena Wilkinson

I love a good book series. Doesn’t everyone? There’s something so comforting about finding a fictional world to retreat to, and when there’s more than one story set in that world it’s even better. 

As a child, I read voraciously, and some of my favourite books – and the ones I’ve gone on to collect as adults – have been in series. Back then, I don’t think I ever managed to read a series in order. Most of my books came from the library, so it depended very much on what happened to be on the shelves. The few books I owned tended to be presents bought by grandparents and they were more likely to be worthy classics than the Malory Towers or Five Find-Outers titles I craved.

One of the longest series ever written is Elinor M Brent-Dyer’s Chalet School series, with 59 in the original hardbacks series. Published between 1925 and 1970 the quality is variable, with most fans agreeing that the last twenty or so book are formulaic, heavy on incident but light on character development. By then of course, it doesn’t matter so much – you’ve been well and truly hooked and you read on anyway. If the current term’s adventures aren’t up to much, there’s always the chance of gleaning some news of old girls. It’s rather like keeping in touch with an old friend: you might not have much in common; you find her rather dull, but just occasionally you share a joke that reminds you what attracted you to each other all those years ago.

Now I have all the Chalet School books and when I reread them, which I do perhaps once a decade, I always read them in order. But that’s very far from how I encountered them. Back in the seventies and eighties you took what you could find, and as the whole series was never in print at one time, and the paperbacks were published out of order, with the final ones not appearing until the nineties, I grew accustomed to meeting the main character Jo as a twelve-year-old, then as a prefect, then as the mother of eleven, then a fifteen-year-old, then a young bride... It was disconcerting, I suppose, and there were a lot of spoilers. When a young Dr Maynard appeared in the cast, I already knew, because I had read the later books, that he would marry Jo and sire those eleven children.  Still, that was just part of the experience, and all I remember is the joy of finding another Chalet book – any Chalet book. Only on the back of some of the less-easy-to-find hardbacks was there a list of all the titles, so for years I didn’t even know how long the series was.

And it was exciting, all that uncertainty: the jeopardy of book collecting.

As an adult, less of my reading is in series, which means that every time you open a book, even by a well-loved author, there’s a certain anxiety: what if I don’t like it? what if I can’t get into it? With the series factor, you eliminate that. One genre which works well in series is the mystery, whether golden age or modern, hard-boiled or cosy. You get a good mystery every time but you also hope to keep pace with the life and sometimes loves of the main characters. 

For ages people have been recommending the Dr Ruth Galloway mysteries by Elly Griffiths, about a forensic archaeologist who helps the police, most particularly the disturbingly attractive detective Nelson with their enquiries. I had read so much about these books that one day, about a month ago, I downloaded the first one, The Crossing Places,  on my kindle. On page one I smiled. On page two I winced in recognition. By page three I had not only laughed aloud twice but I knew, as certainly as I knew my name, that not only would I enjoy this book, but that I would read the fourteen which followed. In order.

I discovered these delightful, smart, funny, immersive books at the perfect time. Not only was the world a scary place and my own life full of stresses (the usual trigger for a Chalet School reread) but, more pleasantly, I was about to go on holiday. The kind of holiday which would involve a lot of lying on a sunbed reading. I had got to book 6, when my kindle flashed up a message: You have read 6 of 15 books. Do you want to buy the others?

Well, yes, I did. And all week, as soon as one murder was solved, there was the next one waiting for me. I didn’t have to think, what am I going to read? I didn’t have to worry that I wouldn’t like it. And if the first chapter seemed to be about a random, unappealing character, I knew I need not fear – soon Ruth and Nelson would be on the scene, and all would be right with the world. At least with the fictional world.

I avoid Covid books but I loved The Locked Room, book 14 in the series, because by then I knew and cared for the characters so much that I wanted to see how they coped in lockdown. 

As the series drew to an end, I was bereft, but comforted by the fact that there were seven Brighton mysteries by the same author, set in the fifties and sixties. There’s even a school story series for younger readers. I’m not young, but I’ll be buying that too.

Soon I will have exhausted all those books, and it will be time to look for, and enjoy excellent standalone books again, but for now I am just loving my discovery of a reliably enjoyable author, and the luxury of being able to read my way through her stories in order. 

I know I will feel bereft when I finish, but luckily, in the middle of all this binge-reading, the wonderful Rachel Ward published her most recent Supermarket Mystery, The Missing Heirloom Mystery. So once again I know I can rely on excellent writing, a satisfying mystery, a compellingly-drawn setting and characters who feel like old friends.