Where Did
Your Love of Mysteries Begin?
– by Heather Weidner
When I’m asked about where did my love of mysteries start, I always say that Scooby-Doo and Nancy Drew were my gateways to the mystery world. But as I look back on my favorite children’s books, I realized that the first mystery that really hooked me was actually a picture book, Jon Stone’s The Monster at the End of the Book. Grover, the blue fuzzy protagonist, spends the entire book fretting over the monster who is supposed to make an appearance on the last page of the story. In hindsight, this is where I was discovered a passion for suspense, mystery, plot twists, clues, and irony.
Saturday morning cartoons were also the beginning of my mystery-watching addiction that has blossomed to include true crime shows, podcasts, and a host of murder documentaries. There were so many cartoons in the seventies with crime fighters and puzzle solvers like Scooby-Doo Where Are You, Josie and the Pussycats, The Funky Phantom, Captain Caveman, Jabber Jaw, Goober and the Ghost Chasers, Speed Buggy, Lassie’s Rescue Rangers, The CB Bears, Deputy Dawg, Mumbly, and Devlin, and I watched them all.
Cartoons and my picture books started a love that grew to include a whole host of books as soon as I discovered the library. In fourth grade, my friend and I raced to finish the yellow-covered Nancy Drews, and then we moved on to the Hardy Boys and the Three Investigators. (And it didn’t hurt that Shaun Cassidy and Parker Stevens starred in The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Mysteries every week on TV.)
Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, like the Mystery Inc. gang in the Scooby-Doo series, were ordinary kids who were able to solve mysteries that the adults couldn’t. They had freedom to explore, cool transportation, and friends to help them solve the crime and bring justice. I devoured these books and moved on to Two-Minute Mysteries, Agatha Christie, Edgar Allan Poe, and Arthur Conan Doyle.
Mystery and
crime fiction followed me to college where I took the best course offered in our
English department, Dr. Magnuson’s “Mystery and Detective Fiction.” He
introduced us to the history of the genre, key tropes, subgenres, and the
“rules” for writing crime fiction, but the best part was that I was required to
read an entire syllabus of new-to-me authors.
My love of
mysteries started early with cartoons and books. It also didn’t hurt that I was
a C. K. (cop’s kid), and murder and true crime were regular topics at our
dinner table.
Where did
your love of mystery and suspense start?
