Has anyone read the Murder, She Wrote books by "Jessica Fletcher" (they have pictures on the cover that look like Angela Lansbury) and by/with Donald Bain until recently? (I think he might have passed away.)

The most recent three or four are written with someone named Jon Land, and I have read only through the first of these, and I feel the character of Jessica had changed.

For most of this (book) series, I thought she was a terrific balance of open-minded and secure in her beliefs; liking both alone time and socializing; living in the real world even though she was a writer, etc. Not too nerdy - very self-assured socially. The most recent book, A Date With Murder, she seemed...less happy, and (because the mystery revolves around a dating site, set up for older, widowed people) she was questioning why she had never dated and whether she'd used her writing to shut herself away from the real world...didn't sound like the character I'd come to know through the series thus far.

Plus, it wasn't even true that she had never dated! She's had a few admirers in the books, and there's one, a Scotland Yard Chief Inspector, George Sutherland, who has professed feelings for her and whom she admits to having feelings for (she just doesn't want to have to move to London to be with him - and Seth Hazlitt seems jealous about this "romantic" friendship between Jessica and Sutherland) In A Date With Murder, she is contemplating dating and there's no mention of him at all. That seems weird. And, she was judgmental about a young man who sought out older women on the dating site - in an earlier book she had said she understood why young men would be attracted to older women.

By the way, is Sutherland in the TV series at all?

I suppose reading should be encouraged, though this seems like a money-spinner for ghostwriter Donald Bain. Didn't he have Jessica driving in one of the novels when she had never learned to drive? I don't recall George Sutherland in the TV series.

No, the not driving is one thing the books have been consistent with - through all of the ghostwriters.

No, the not driving is one thing the books have been consistent with - through all of the ghostwriters.
You can blame Wikipedia for the confusion:



In keeping with the spirit of the TV show, a series of official original novels have been written and published by the New American Library. The co-author credited for all of the novels is the fictitious "Jessica Fletcher". The first novel, Gin and Daggers, authored by American ghostwriter Donald Bain, included several inaccuracies to the TV series including Jessica driving a car which she could not do as she never learned to drive. Due to fans pointing out the errors, the novel was republished in 2000 with most of the inaccuracies corrected.