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What a great, interesting topic.

Sublimose, I hear you - except you lasted longer into the Kay Scarpetta series than I did. I thought Cornwell jumped the shark from book five onwards with the increasingly outlandish plots, involvement of her family, and the amount of the author's politics inserted into the text. I haven't read anything of hers since... I can't remember. But I've still got the first book and the third around somewhere.

Another crime fiction writer who really irritates me at times is Peter Robinson, with his Inspector Alan Grant series. Most of the books are quite serviceable whoddunnits or whydunnits with a good sense of place (Yorkshire Dales) and believable characters, but every now and then one of the books is superlative (ie Aftermath, the first of his that I ever read and possibly set me up with unfairly high expectations) and every now and then one of the books is a complete turkey (ie Friend of the Devil, a classic shark jumper if there ever was one).

I sometimes thought the same of Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus series, as the first few are nothing special but then they take off from about Black & Blue onwards. Then, I discovered what I'd considered a couple of more recent 'disappointing' books (ie Resurrection Men) had greater depth that didn't become clear until the re-read. Just as well I hung on to them.

Thought of another one: Thomas Hardy. When I was at high school and a few years after I set myself the task of reading all of his novels after really enjoying Far From the Madding Crowd and Tess of the Durbervilles (to a lesser extent). Some of them I loved and still do, including some of the more obscure works that I never would've discovered without the 'project' approach such as Two on a Tower, others could easily end up propping wobbly table legs - particularly some of his earlier misfires such as The Hand of Ethelberta and A Pair of Blue Eyes. Sometimes there's very good reason that some works are out of print or more obscure than others.

Reading back, I also agree about Stephen King. I haven't read any of his books in years now but do remember enjoying Dolores Claiborne more than just about anything else of his I'd ever read.

Sublimosa, if you can bear to go near Rankin's Rebus series again try something like Black and Blue, as that's the one generally regarded as his breakthrough book. The setting will still be in dreary Edinburgh though.

And now I'm off to google The Fifth Woman!