A collection of essays by crime/mystery writers on writing, mysteries (writing and field), and their own experience. I found these to be genuinely motivating, very interesting, and revealing. I’ve never thought to write a crime novel–I’ve always been an SF/F reader, and that’s what I feel I write when I write–but I enjoy mysteries, and have done so ever since I began reading. The first two adult books I remember reading, besides the Bible, was the complete O’Henry and Sherlock Holmes. It was interesting to find writers here with similar experiences to mine–in particular, K.C. Constantine and his school problems. Of the writers in this volume (Robert Barnard, Rex Burns, Constantine, Dorothy Salisbury Davis, Michael Gilbert, Donald Hamilton, Joseph Hansen, Tony Hillerman, Reginald Hill, James McClure, and Robert B. Parker), I’ve only read Parker. From these essays, I am interested in reading something else by all of them with the exception of Davis and Hill.

[Finished 1 April 1993]