[Isaiah Adams]

Hello Mr. Korman,

My name is Isaiah. When I was in 7th grade your first Swindle book (Swindle) was one of the options for a book assignment I had in ELA. I read it and became attached to the characters and mystery and action. This year I moved to a new school and when browsing the library I was fortunate to find the other 7 books (Zoobreak, Framed, Showoff, Hideout, Jackpot, Unleashed and Jingle) all in the library. I was able to zoom through all of the books, starting with Zoobreak in September 2022 and finishing Jingle in January 2023 (as of when I'm reading this, I just finished it an hour ago actually!) and now I have the feeling every reader gets at some point.

I got that feeling in reading for the first time when you finish a book you like and you're riveting to check out the next book in the series only to find out that there is no more books in the series. Then you start to feel empty inside, you spent a lot of your free time reading these books, becoming attached to the characters and their antics, and now that the series is done you feel unsatisfied. You start to wonder "What happened to these characters?" and stuff like that. 

I know there probably won't be another Swindle book as I did some research and from 2008 through 2016 (excluding 2012) there was a Swindle book released every year, if that were to keep going there would be way more Swindle books but there is not. So if you do see this, can you tell me why you stopped writing these books? Did you just get bored of writing them, or perhaps did the "kids commit crimes for a good reason" get stale after a while? Did you run out of ideas for things to happen? After finishing Jingle, I did notice that the main plot line is basically the same as Framed, with Griffin getting blamed for stealing an object worth millions.

If you can could you please say? I'd be glad if you could. One more thing, do you have any suggestions for books I can read that are of a similar vein to Swindle, whether it be your writing it not.

Thank you, hope you have a good 2023!

[Gordon Korman]

Hi, Isaiah,

Thanks for posting and for being so loyal to the SWINDLE series.

No, I didn't really run out of ideas. And I didn't get sick of writing the series. Sales were dropping off, which meant that the reading public was getting sick of it. My editors decided I should move on, and I agreed. I get a lot of fan mail asking for more Griffin and Ben and the team, and I would never say never, but I really think the series is done.

If it's a rip-snortin' series you're after, try my MASTERMINDS series. Another 3-book series of mine is THE HYPNOTISTS. Hey, there are 101 books on my list right now, so you won't run out of choices. As for other authors, there is a lot of material out there, so you'll never be without something to read! Enjoy.

                                  Thanks again.                                                               -----Gordon Korman-----