Bill, I thought of another series you might like: Lilian Jackson Braun's "Cat Who..." series. It's a light, fun mystery series. The last several novels in this series of something like 20 + are not so great, but that is most likely because the author is now in her 90's, if she is even still living, and the last three or four novels were either her rough drafts or were written by a very poor ghostwriter.