Why I Write Mysteries...

          According to Oscar Wilde, Henry James wrote as if writing "were a painful duty." Well, it isn't. Writing can be enjoyable, if you're good at it, and reading certainly should be. However dark the subject, however serious the themes, mysteries should read as if the author enjoyed himself writing them. I do.
        I write the kinds of mysteries I would enjoy reading: plucky couple puzzles involving people with values I admire and wit I can appreciate. When I finish a mystery someone else has written, I don't want to shake my head in admiration and think, "Boy, that guy sure knows a lot more than I do about how the interaction of rainwater and certain mineral-bearing igneous rock can produce a chemical reaction resulting in the release of cyanide gas ." I want to smack myself on the forehead and say, "Doh! I should have seen that forty pages ago!" That little epiphany - the delight not of understanding something complicated but of realizing something simple - is what I reallyenjoy. That's what I try to produce.

                                                        - Michael Bowen

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