Six top characters only getting better with age

In ongoing book series, Jeff Somers notes, "characters often seem to exist in a strange universe where nothing changes and no one ages." Yet some authors choose "the route of unexplained immortality and age their characters over the course of a series." One such character:

Kinsey Millhone

As opposed to her counterpart female detective in a series of sequentially-titled novels (Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum), Sue Grafton chose to age Kinsey Millhone in her Alphabet Series—just very, very slowly. Plum will be 31 years old forever, but Millhone has been slowly moving towards her 40th birthday according to a very precise equation—the big four-oh will happen in Grafton’s 26th and final entry in the series. This has allowed Millhone to grow older and wiser, but keeps the series firmly in the 1980s and the character in her thirties, which has proved to be a very smart way of handling the issue.

Read about another character on Somers's list.

--Marshal Zeringue