Mark,
Thanks for
the questions:
1 and 2) I
decided to kill off Nancy as a "brainstorm" while beginning
that book, SPIRAL, set in Fort Lauderdale, while doing
promotional visits in South Florida. I thought at Book #13,
it was time to bring Cuddy back to his "roots," so to speak,
as a loner/widower. Given the fan reaction running 9 to 1
AGAINST the decision, I probably made a mistake, which I
DON'T think would have been redeemed by tying her death more
into a Cuddy book main plot, especially since, in Book #12
(THE ONLY GOOD LAWYER), Cuddy investigates the killing of a
FORMER assistant district attorney.
3)
Originally, I thought I'd have trouble coming up with enough
graveyard scenes for the books. Then I realized that the
better route would be to keep Cuddy a "pure" widower (i.e.,
frozen in time) for the short stories (the first half of
which are collected in THE CONCISE CUDDY, published in 1998
by Crippen & Landru, and the second half of which will be
collected in CUDDY PLUS ONE, to be published in 2002 by
C&L as well). For the last few books in the series, I
believe Cuddy has made only one visit to Beth's resting place
per novel, which I think is about right, both for him AND for
those fans who find such visits the subliminal signature of
Cuddy as a protagonist.
I'd be happy
to hear other critiques, especially since I will be dropping
off to let another writer be featured once November comes to
an end.
Best from Boston,
Jerry
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