A New Heroine
I like reading mysteries. It's not so much the who-dunnit piece, though I have fun matching wits with the fictional detectives. It's not the procedures and the structure and the insight into the back rooms of the precincts or the attorney's offices that attracts me, although in the last two years I've begun to enjoy comparing their experiences to my own. It's not the twists and turn which bring me back for more; in fact, they annoy me more than they should. What draws me to these stories are the characters. John Lescroart weaves a huge cast in and out of his novels. For a while, I tried to read the stories in order by character; it was impossible. Without reading the stories in chronological order, I was missing little bits and pieces of information which made my attempts at character study quite frustrating. James Lee Burke and Patricia Cornwell follow one family and its hangers-on; children grow up and take lovers; relationships begin and end in w...