I started young and just loved reading – stories, books, the comics (back when newspapers were routinely delivered to homes). If I went out riding my bike and my mom didn’t know where to find me, she’d call the library. Usually, that’s where I was.
As a kid I liked everything: Encyclopedia Brown was maybe an early indication that I would lean toward mysteries, but I also loved The Dark is Rising, The Great Brain, A Wrinkle in Time, Where the Red Fern Grows, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, among many, many others. At around the age of twelve I discovered Sherlock Holmes, and that was it. I read all the stories over and over. To this day, I still love all things Sherlock.
My parents were both readers, although with very different tastes. Mom loved John D. MacDonald and Dick Francis, along with writers like Len Deighton, so I picked these up too. I loved spy thrillers back then, and still do, although these I mostly enjoy as movies now. My dad loved the Brits and the French – early on, he introduced me to Georges Simenon’s Maigret (who I liked so much, I actually plowed through a few in French), Dorothy L. Sayers and Edmund Crispin. Much later in life he put me onto Alexander McCall Smith and one of my very favorites: Ian Rankin.
On my own I found Sue Grafton when she hadn’t yet published beyond “B is for Burgler,” and I could never wait for the next Kinsey Millhone to come out – sometimes I’d even buy the hardback just to get it right away. The Gideon Oliver series by Aaron Elkins was always fun, and I was quite sad the day I discovered I’d read them all. Ditto Jonathan Kellerman’s Alex Delaware books, although I still hold out hope more might come along! The Brits appeal to me too: I’m a fan of P.D. James and Elizabeth George, for example, as well as their Canadian cousin, Louise Penny. And while I do like a good novel in other genres, I gravitate toward series. When I’m invested in characters, I want to see more of them.
When I read Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Danish author Peter Hoeg, it made an impact. The book has that subdued, wintery feel that I associate with a lot of European works, very atmospheric. But what really hit me was how, while looking into a crime, Smilla also makes observations about Danish and Greenlandic cultures, and about the psyche and psychology of people. It made me think that a mystery makes a great framework for this type of musing, a way to talk philosophy without writing a thesis. This is where the idea for my own series first took hold.
Right now, I’m utterly beguiled by Richard Osman. So quintessentially English, so understatedly funny, so perfect. After the first three pages of The Thursday Murder Club, I was hooked. It was just so good.
AUTHOR Anne loiselle 