I started reading mysteries back in Grade School when I read that my fiction idol, Elizabeth Wakefield of the Sweet Valley Twins series, loved them. It ended up growing on me, and long after I stopped reading about Elizabeth, I still thrived on mysteries.
As a child, my staple was Nancy Drew, Bobsey Twins, Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown and of course, the oldest and most popular fiction detective of all time, Sherlock Holmes. In High School, my then bestfriend Lyn introduced me to the detective who was second in age and popularity to the trench coat-wearing, magnifying lens-toting one – Hercule Poirot of Agatha Christie‘s creation. I remember how Lyn and I exchanged Agatha Christie books for Christmas once. The one she gave me was entitled The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and until now it is my favorite Agatha Christie book. I just found out recently that it is considered as the author’s masterpiece. Another thing I found out recently is that Christie is the world’s best selling author of all time.
In College I got hooked on Sidney Sheldon, and while working, on Harry Potter. I know, I know, the latter is not, strictly speaking, classified under mysteries but under fantasy, but I still consider it as such, with all its twists and secrets that only got unraveled until book 7.
My interest in mysteries did not stop with books, but extended to my choice of movies and television shows as well – Crime Scene Investigation and House, which is a show about medical mysteries. As a result, in real life, I have a tendency to be very suspicious and have been known to tell a friend, “Are you sure that ’employer’ is for real? Get him to hold something so that you’ll have his fingerprints so that you can trace him in case he runs.” Oops.