So there I was, unemployed and looking for something to read.  I supposed it was frivolous to buy books (when I wasn't working) instead of going to the library, but amassing a permanent Collection was part of it, too.  And I didn't have a library within walking distance.  And I may not have been thinking too clearly.  In any case, I remembered Elmore Leonard and I took it from there.  Paradoxically, his books don't have repeat characters but that didn't matter - for Elmore Leonard I could make an exception.  I also thought back to a few of the books I enjoyed from my book-club days and I remembered an early Sue Grafton book and the second or third James Lee Burke and I realized that they, too, were a place to start.  I went into Amazon and started looking around.  I found a few promising names and I read reader comments and I amassed a list of series that I thought would be interesting and would continue to grow.  Some had started many years before and some were relatively recent, but they were all ongoing and I decided to buy used books only (I was unemployed, after all).  I was obsessive about the whole thing - I was determined to start at the beginning of any given series - but that was fine and even the older books weren't that hard to locate.  I'd pay as little as a penny for these titles (plus, of course, Amazon's outrageous delivery charge of $3.49 for a used book).  I started filling in the gaps in Leonard's long line of books and pretty soon my collection started to grow.  That's what this blog is really all about.  In alphabetical order.  From James Lee Burke to Steven Womack.