I was enjoying this series but have to admit I lost interest around book 11 as the quality of the writing and stories seemed to drop. The first books were good and I liked the historical setting. It's far enough back to be an interesting period but late enough to feel a bit modern. The characters are decent but whilst the detective is good his boss is just too stereotypical. The plots go between standard crime stories and columbo style stories. In the former there is a tendency which became annoying, namely withholding characters/information and/or introducing the murderer in the last chapters. In the latter we the readers know who the murderer is and like in columbo we follow the detectives as they track him down. As I say I enjoyed the books but found by the 11th book that the writing was becoming weaker with too many unnecessary plotlines involving colbeck's family life. I stopped reading at book 14 but feel free to try them as I did enjoy the early books.