Whats the origin of the alphabet tradition?
In the back of my mind, when I thought I would write a mystery novel, I understood the virtue of having titles that readers-at-large could recognize so that they’d know you had a next book out. I was reading an Edward Gorey cartoon book called The Gashlycrumb Tinies, and his book is a series of pen-and-ink drawings of Victorian children being done in various ways. If you have not read it, it is truly amusing. His book goes, “A is for Amy who fell down the stairs. B is for Basil assaulted by bears. C is for Clara who [wasted away],” on down the alphabet. And I thought to myself, “God bless it. Why couldn’t you base a series of crime novels on letters of the alphabet?” (See the top 10 fiction books of 2009.) This is the 21st book in the series. How have you come up with so many different plots? Part of what I do is keep charts of the books I’ve written, so I have a record of the gender of every killer, the gender of the victim, the motive for the crime and the nature of the climax how do
