Related rant:
The Man in Lower 10 by Mary Roberts Rinehart is listed as the first in a two book series: The Miss Cornelia Van Gorder Mysteries. But that character doesn't appear in the book at all.
Related: A book I really enjoy,
Kiln People by David Brin is listed as the first in a series called The Kiln Books. But there is no sequel and so far as I know there never was one intended. The book was not marketed as part of a series and I believe the series label is pretty recent.
Who watches this stuff? The publisher? Amazon?