I hope you’re joining us in celebrating May: National Get Caught Reading Month!
Reading is a solitary activity, but there’s no reason we can’t do it in public. In fact, it’s a great thing to do in front of other people because it reminds others to pick up a book and exercise their brains!
In celebration of Get Caught Reading Month, we are having a giveaway on the blog, right here right now!
The prize this week is an audiobook copy of my book Wasted Justice.
To enter for your chance to win, leave a comment at the bottom of this blog post telling me:
What was the first mystery novel you ever read?
Last week’s winner is Mary Sweeney. Congratulations, Mary!
I love any book — especially a mystery — that reminds children that reading is an adventure — something that’s great for us adults to remember, too!
I believe the first mystery book I read was Murder in the Telephone Exchange by June Wright. I worked at Melbourne Trunks when I was a sixteen year old, my first job, and the place where the story is based.
I reread the book again recently to experience how differently I would appreciate it after 63 years and it was fun to go back in time.
Congratulations, Patricia! You are the winner of a “Wasted Justice” audiobook! To claim your prize, please email us at team.capri.1@gmail.com and we will send you instructions about how to claim it. Happy reading!
My first mystery book I think, was House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier.
No contest entry please.
This comment dates back to just after the middle of the last century–just give some temporal flavor.
One rainy summer day, I was digging around in some boxes and found three books by a writer, Victor Appleton. They were about a young inventor Tom Swift and his sidekick.
The books took the form of both high adventure, plausible science and mystery, since there was always a rival scientist trying to steal the latest great project of either Tom Sr. or Tom Jr.
The first book was TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RIFLE..
You may laugh…these books hooked me on 1. reading, 2. writing, 3. science and science fiction, 4. mysteries/procedurals and probably most important–opened my imagination…I was probably no more than six or seven years old when I first read these books.
More followed, of course. Since I read well above grade-level, I got to go places in the local library other kids didn’t even know existed, so I got to sample some early 87th Precinct (I was 11 when they first arrived) and some of the “pulp fiction” superheroes–Doc Savage was a favorite. Oddly, comic books just did not hold any appeal.
My current stuff is usually a blend of sci-fi and some procedural. Or paranormal and procedural. Who knows, some day, I may even publish…
The Nancy Drew mysteries are the first I can remember. Can’t tell you any titles because those were read about 65 years ago.