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I'm new to the series - I have read four titles and have five more queued up on my bookshelf.
Grave Descend was a lucky entry point for me into HCC's line - I really liked the story. Zero Cool, by comparison, tried to be mysterious with its awkward conversations and annoyed me so much I almost gave up before getting to the halfway decent ending.
Grifter's Game's ending disturbed me, while Fade To Blonde's ending greatly improved my opinion of a rather slow-starting novel. So, four novels into the series, I enjoyed half of what I read - that's better than my semi-random picks at Chapters usually do.
Next up I will read some of the recent releases, probably Money Shot or the Ms. Tree entry - both look very good, and have good reviews.
I wonder if the quality is slipping, or if the perception of the quality of the stories is just changing as the novelty wears off. I am used to reading cookie cutter murder mysteries homing to find a rare gem among them (with little success), and the noir style is a breath of fresh air for me. However, with each subsequent book the patterns of the genre become more familiar (femme fatale, twist at the end etc) and the writing style less fresh. I wonder if other regular HCC readers find the same thing. Perhaps this is a case of familiarity breeding contempt?
In any event, thank you to everyone who has written in the HCC threads - you did a great job selling a series of books that I look forward to diving further into.
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