A Medieval Mystery Series Comes To An End, a guest post by Jeri Westerson

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I first met Crispin Guest in 2008, along with the chronicler of his adventures, Jeri Westerson. I've been a fan ever since, so when Jeri told me Crispin was exiting the stage (hopefully not pursued by a bear) my first response was, "Oh, no!" 

 

But my second thought was, "That's perfect." How many times have you read the final novel (or watched the last episode) and been left a little disappointed - no ultimate resolution, threads left dangling, questions unanswered. There's a reason people still talk about The Fugitive - we found out what happened with Dr. Kimble and the one-armed man!

 

So though I'm sorry to see him go, I'm very, very excited to find out what happens to Crispin, his apprentice, Jack, their friends and family and Henry Bolingbroke (okay, I know what happens to Henry Bolingbroke) in THE DEADLIEST SIN.

 

What do you write for the last book of a series? How do you sum up over sixteen years of your time and devotion?

By killing people, of course.

Well, not random people, but people in the book. There still has to be a murder. Or multiple murders, and in this case, because it is set in London in the late fourteenth century, it seemed that it had to be in a priory and the deaths had to be in the manner of the Seven Deadly Sins, hence the title THE DEADLIEST SIN. And so Crispin Guest, medieval private detective, embarks on his last-ever case to solve in the tangled and shadowed realm of St Frideswide Priory in the heart of London.

 

Of course, in the background there are great political movements afoot that will change the course of English fortunes. King Richard II, a far from beloved king, may be in the process of being overthrown, and he hasn’t figured that out yet. Henry Bolingbroke, the son of Crispin’s mentor John of Gaunt, the duke of Lancaster, has returned from his banishment…with an army. And Crispin must decide whether to commit treason again—the thing that started him on this course with his own banishment from court and all the misfortunes and humiliations he’d endured for the last twenty years.

 

But it was no secret to me when I began writing this series how I would end it. As always happens when you are researching a particular time period, your expectations expand when you find out all sorts of interesting historical nuggets that lead you on to new ideas, new directions to aim for in your plotting about a disgraced knight who is hired to solve crimes. When you hang your fortunes on the real timeline, and put your fictional characters in there, a natural ending unfolds.

I always planned on ending the series in a particular year. For one, I felt it would round out the characters’ lives sufficiently. And for another, I didn’t want to get stale or repetitive in my writing of it. I think fifteen books is a good collection of novels and it leaves me time to work on new historical mysteries where I can research in some other time period or periods. Two of which, I am already writing: One in Tudor England, and another in Sherlock Holmes’ London. 

 

 

As a writer, I like to constantly challenge myself to find other stories to tell. And it’s nice to get the chance to do that. There’s something about writing in another time period that gives an author a great excuse to spend those hours in university libraries or online archives. No matter how long you are at it, it’s never wasted time.

What has been the most interesting to me is the reaction to ending the series from readers and librarians. “I hope you’ll continue the series with Jack Tucker investigating,” many have remarked. Jack is Crispin’s servant and protégé, who started as an orphaned street urchin and cutpurse, and grew up under Crispin’s (at first) reluctant guidance.

But the answer to that is “no”. There will not be any spin-offs or sequels. The series will be done and complete, and I will be onto other things, as mentioned above. It’s funny what a writer thinks about their characters and how they interact with them…as opposed to what the reader experiences. And being a reader myself, I get it when you aren’t allowed to experience any more of a favorite characters’ adventures. But I always think that the best characters have lives before one opens the book and when one closes the cover on the last page; that they continue to live their lives…somewhere. We’re just not privy to them. Those are the best adventures. The ones that linger on the minds of readers. The ones that endure.

I need to thank Julia Spencer-Fleming for taking me under her wing when this series started. She certainly didn’t have to. But it was very helpful for me to understand what I had to do to promote this series and the fact that I still enjoy her friendship all these years later, well… It’s this wonderful community of mystery writers I am grateful to. As well as the booksellers I got to know through this series, and all the librarians all over the country. A big thank you to all. Be on the lookout for more.

 

JULIA: Thank you, Jeri, for the many years of pleasure I've gotten from following the adventures of Crispin and young Jack. Readers,  do you like it when a series has an actual conclusion? Have there been any that you felt leave you hanging? Let us know, because one lucky commenter will win a signed copy of THE DEADLIEST SIN!

___________________________________________________

Jeri Westerson writes the CrispinGuest Medieval Noir novels, a fifteen-book series nominated for thirteen mystery awards. She also writes an urban fantasy series, Booke of the Hidden; a spin-off werewolf mystery series, Moonrisers; a gaslamp-steampunk fantasy series Enchanter Chronicles Trilogy; a few standalone historical novels; and a humorous/romantic LGBTQ mystery series, the Skyler Foxe Mysteries under the pen name Haley Walsh. Find them all and any future series at JeriWesterson.com. She is also happily active on social media at Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube and Twitter.