The First Time I Read Sue Grafton: Welcome Paty Jager

The first time I read Sue Grafton’s A is for Alibi, my creative writing brain fired up. I’d found a mystery voice and character that made me think I could write a mystery. I was an avid reader of mysteries: Agatha Christie, Dorothy Gilman, Dick Francis, Tony Hillerman, Lillian Jackson Braun. They were all writers who had strong, intriguing, yet genuine main characters as the sleuths, and in the case of Hillerman, I was drawn to the Native American element.

I had several college fiction/creative writing classes and decided I could tackle a first person mystery with a female protagonist. Only I had never lived in a large city and I knew nothing about how the legal system worked. However, shortly after I’d made my decision to write a mystery there were two people on a talk show. They had written a book, Be Your Own Detective. I sat down and listen to the whole interview. Afterwards, I went to the book store and ordered the book.

In setting up my first mystery, I had my novice sleuth do the same thing. When she gets a call from her ex-husband from jail claiming he didn’t kill the person he’s accused of killing, she sees the talk show and goes out and buys the book to help discover the truth. I used the methods in the book to move the character through the book and plot. That book and the second with that sleuth has not seen the light of day.

My arsenal of “how to” writing books has Writing Mysteries: A Handbook by Mystery Writers of America and edited by Sue Grafton. This book has also been helpful and influential in my mystery writing process.