Keeping up with a series

I think that one of the attractions of detective novels (as with fantasy) is that you can have expectations of the next book. I was lucky this past week, three series that I have followed came out with new installments - either as paperback (that I usually wait for) or as a great deal on my internet bookstore site. The long series has been complemented by a new Alan Banks novel "Piece of my heart" and those of us that remember the sixties were not mislead by the allusion to rock concerts via Janis. Peter Robinson has once again written a satisfying Inspector Banks novel. I was lucky and came to them late - and had a lot of fun catching up. All the books have lots of music references and on PR's website you can find lists so that you can suplement your CD collection.
Another much shorter series by Julia Spencer-Fleming (only on book 4, book 5 expected out in the fall) is about Millers Kill in New York. "To darkness and to death" is yet another book with lots of bodies and a rather mismatched love story between the reverend Clare Fergusson and police chief Russ van Alstyne. As an aside - for me - lots about logging and environmentalists. I still don't know what I think about the religion connection, but it is interesting.
The shortest series is about bus riding Samantha Kincaid. "Close case" is the third book in this series and an example of the fact that in no mystery novel is anything a coincidence - all is connected, sometimes in a bit convoulted manner. Arthropods play a role in this book, Sam's boss gets Lyme disease (spread by ticks). The author of this series, Alafair Burke, is no stranger to mystery series - her father is James Lee Burke.