It's a Mystery

I do a lot of reading. More specifically, I read--no, devour--mysteries. It's a long standing habit, begun in childhood, when my mother got us a subscription to a Nancy Drew book club. From there I moved on to Trixie Beldon and other YA series, taking in an occasional Agatha Christie, though at the time I couldn't appreciate the subtleties she worked into her books.

As a younger adult I read a few mysteries, but the bulk of my fiction reading fell under the fantasy/science fiction banner, and in the past ten years or so it's swung back to mysteries.

My favorites are either real golden age authors: Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, et al, or modern works whose authors set the scene in an earlier time, 1920s and 30s for preference.

Throughout all of this I've thought about writing one. It happens to most people who do a lot of reading, especially those who field the "you should write one, you read so many you must know how!" comments. I've been hearing a lot of those comments in the past few years from my husband, who has had to put up with stacks of books on the staircase, next to the bed, on the dining room table and even next to the bathtub.

As of last week, count me in as a would-be author of a mystery novel. It really has begun. So far there have been hours that fly...when my last memory is of noon, and I look at the lower right hand corner of the laptop to find that it's suddenly 4:36, and days when half an hour produces no more than four tortured sentences.

I have a setting, main characters, a time period and some gimmicks that aren't, I hope, too cozy. What I need now is persistence, a cohesive plot, and a better plot to crash the publishing industry.

The Bouchercon will be held in Indianapolis, IN this year. I don't know if I'll be able to attend (I think it might come into conflict with the RBS weekend of this year), but if I can I'll absorb all I can in order to do this thing properly.

It's no overnight job but it's possible (if not necessarily probably) that two years from now I'll be a published author.

Deadstock

That would be a great title for a mystery involving the vintage trade.

I was nosing around to find a few Albert Campion titles (author: Margery Allingham) and stumbled over a Golden Age Mysteries forum, but it won't let me post. It got me to thinking again about writing a mystery, and of the ones I like to read.

Here are some of my favorite "golden age" authors, in no particular order.

Sayers (Lord Peter Wimsey)
Christie (Tommy & Tuppence, Poirot and non-series are my favorites)
Stout (Nero Wolfe)
Allingham (Albert Campion).

There are a few present day authors who write historical mysteries set in the 20s and 30s.

Jill Churchill (Grace & Favor series)
Kerry Greenwood (Phryne Fisher)
Carola Dunn (The Hon. Daisy Dalrymple)

The later aren't on an even footing with the real thing. Hindsight can ruin a good book (!) but I enjoy them, if only because I'd like to think I could do as well.

"Deadstock", by the way, is term used to describe "old/new" items. In other words, something vintage or antique that has never been used, and might even still have the original sale tags.