Carol Anne asked Elizabeth George:

This question contains spoilers… (view spoiler)

Elizabeth George Thanks for the question. The answer is pretty simple: When you're writing a series instead of a stand alone book, you have to keep opening the story up, and you don't want to close the story down until the series itself is completed. This is why, for instance, PD James's detective never married until her final novel prior to her death. At that point, he actually would have been something like 100 years old, but we make allowances for series characters. When Lynley married Helen, it was the beginning of the closing down of his story. They had issues to deal with, which they did, but once those were dealt with and Helen was happily pregnant....well, let me say that there's a reason there are no memorable babies in literature. If she'd had a baby, Lynley's story would have effectively closed down. To open it up, i had two choices: either to introduce another character into the mix or to eliminate one. I chose the second option, which was like a bomb going off in the series.

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