Goodbye, Sharon McCone

How do you feel about book series? Are you a loyal fan of a particular series? Have you abandoned series, if so, why? How do you feel about reading the last book in a series?
All of these questions came to me when the last Sharon McCone book by Marcia Muller turned up in my mail.

Who is Sharon McCone and how did she get into my life? To be honest, I don't remember anymore, she has been around for so long. Maybe San Francisco was the start?
You see, when I first met Sharon, probably sometime in the early 90s, she was a private detective in San Francisco. In fact, she is credited with being the first independent female private detective paving the way for so many others, even if I didn't know it then.
I just liked Sharon and I liked that I could follow her around in my mind's eye having visited San Francisco myself not that long before. She was tough, she was smart, she could stand up for herself. She had a social conscience, in fact she had studied sociology and worked her way through college in department store security, then moved on to become the staff investigator at All Souls, a legal co-op a friend of her founded in San Francisco.

People change, however, even in books sometimes. Sharon left All Souls for becoming too business-like, opened her own agency which grew and grew. She fell in and out of love, more and more characters entered the scene, friends and family members with a vast share of problems, the plots got more complicated, the books got thicker, Sharon met Hy, the mysterious pilot, learned how to fly (just like Muller herself), had a ranch in the middle of nowhere (you have to fly that plane somewhere), found out she was adopted and Native American, Hy and his partners with the high profile security agency moved into a big building, along with Sharon's detective agency ... have you forgotten to breathe yet?
'Cos that's a bit what it felt like to me. And Sharon, it seemed, was a bit overwhelmed as well.
I blame Hy. I was never a fan of Hy, even if he was the love of Sharon's life. Everything about him was too professional, too mysterious, too rugged, too good, too much, too large.

I have abandoned book series for one or the other reason, but can also be loyal to a fault.
I stayed by Sharon's side although I often complained (mostly about Hy 😂). When they stopped translating the books into German, I got the English ones (although I hate mixing languages in a series), but have to admit that I sometimes rushed through them, for example skipping details about planes, how to fly them, and about winds.
The later books got thinner again (which I welcomed).
Some I liked better than others, but my re-reads were the older ones when Sharon still seemed to be Sharon to me and if I hadn't that history with her, I'm sure I would have given up before the end.

Now I have the last book lying there on my nightstand, waiting to be opened for the first time, and I have to admit that there is a bit of grief, but it's not overwhelming like in other cases, instead it's mixed with relief.
When I read my last Terry Pratchett book, I actually cried. Reading my last Kinsey Millhone book by Sue Grafton, I didn't cry, but was really sad.
I'm not saying farewell to Sharon as I'm sure I will not stop re-reading my favorites from time to time, but I'm saying goodbye.
Goodbye, Sharon, you have earned your retirement.