During a recent trip to San Diego to visit a longtime friend, the conversation turned, as it always does, to the people we went to high school with and those people who live in our hometown in Missouri.

We reminisced about mutual friends and acquaintances and about people who are no longer a part of our lives. Some of whom we miss and some of whom we could care less about.

So this seems like a perfect time to reminisce about characters. With so many mysteries published each year, it is easy to forget about a favorite character when they are missing for a year or two. But when an author brings back that hero or heroine after a few years absence, we instantly remember how much enjoyment those stories brought us.

Series characters become a part of our lives. We can't wait to read the next installment of their adventures and many of use wish authors would write faster.

So it was like getting out old photos and years of yearbooks when three authors recently brought back their characters after several years of hiatus.

Steve Hamilton returns to his reluctant private investigator Alex McKnight in Misery Bay. The last time Steve Hamilton published an Alex McKnight novel was A Stolen Season in 2006, but it's not as if Hamilton has been idle. His 2010 novel The Lock Artist won the Edgar for best novel this year.

Five years is a long time, but Hamilton quickly reestablishes the complex Alex in Misery Bay's enthralling plot.

Julia Spencer-Fleming last delved into the life of the Rev. Clare Fergusson in 2008’s I Shall Not Want. It's a different—but no less compelling—Claire who returns in the newly published One Was a Soldier.

Just back from the 18 months she spent flying helicopters in Iraq, Claire has returned with several bad habits and doubts about herself and even her calling as a minister.

Claire's flaws are realistically explored in One Was a Soldier and make readers connect with her even more.

Darryl Wimberley smoothly reintroduces Barrett “Bear” Raines, a detective with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in Devil’s Slew.

The last time Bear fought crime was in 2007’s Pepperfish Keys. In Devil's Slew, Wimberley again shows how racism seeps into an investigation as Bear, an African-American, tries to find out why a returning veteran snapped.

Each of these novels has freshness as if we are reading these characters for the first time. But I am hoping these characters won't be so long in returning.