Private Investigations: Mystery Writers on the Secrets, Riddles, and Wonders in Their Lives

by Victoria Zackheim

Overview

In this thrilling anthology, bestselling mystery writers abandon the cloak of fiction to investigate the suspenseful secrets in their own lives.


For many of us, a good, heart-pounding mystery is the perfect escape from real-world confusion and chaos. But what about the writers who create those stories of suspense and intrigue? How do our favorite novelists cope with our perplexing world, and what mysteries keep them up at night's


In Private Investigations, twenty fan-favorite mystery writers share first-person tales of mysteries they've encountered at home and in the world. Caroline Leavitt regales us with a medical mystery, recounting a time when she lost her voice and doctors couldn't find a cure, Martin Limón travels back to his military stint in Korea to grapple with the crimes of war, Anne Perry ponders the magical powers of stories conjured from writers' imaginations, and more.


Exploring all the tropes of the genre — from haunted houses and elusive perpetrators to regrouping after missed signals have derailed them — these writers' true tales show just how much art imitates life, and how, ultimately, we are all private investigators in our own real-world dramas.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781580059213
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	04/21/2020
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	1,100,943
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Victoria Zackheim is a screenwriter, playwright, and the editor of six anthologies, including the highly acclaimed The Other Woman. She wrote the documentary Where Birds Never Sang: The Story of Ravensbruck and Sachsenhausen Concentration Camps, which aired on PBS nationwide. Zackheim teaches creative nonfiction in the UCLA Extension Writers' Program and is a frequent speaker and writing instructor. She lives in Northern California.

Editorial Reviews

"A fascinating and unsettling set of essays about what makes writers curious, what makes them investigate."—Jane Smiley, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres

"Some books you read for beauty, some for truth, some for the hell of it — but Private Investigations is a book that beats all. It proves the old axiom about how truth is stranger than fiction through these bestselling writers' essays about the strangest mysteries in their very own lives, which are much, much stranger, eerier, sadder, more puzzling, and even more shocking than any novel. A sane woman falls in love with a mad imposter. A healthy writer copes with the massive growth removed from her body by imagining the birth of the twin children she never had. Editor Victoria Zackheim has conjured up a brand-new thing with this collection — so keep it on the bedside table and consult it whenever real life seems a little ho-hum."—Jacquelyn Mitchard, bestselling author of The Deep End of the Ocean

"Private Investigations is an unassuming gem of a book that took me completely by surprise! It is fascinating, and turns out to be much more than the sum of its parts, gracefully assembled by the unobtrusive hand of Victoria Zackheim. A stellar assortment of familiar mystery writers comes to grips with the efforts of solving the defining mysteries that directed — and have continued to shape — their actual lives. The result is startlingly wondrous! This collection is made up of personal essays that read like extraordinarily intimate stories, and the effect of reading them is at once shocking but also deeply moving and, in the end, oddly reassuring. Not one of us is alone facing the sometimes daunting conundrums of our lives."—Robb Forman Dew, National Book Award­-winning author of Dale Loves Sophie to Death

"Every reader wants to read books that beguile them away from their mundane lives. The story craft of these writers at the top of their game does exactly that: They seduce us into their personal live and share private mysteries, like a reaction to a college peeping Tom, an almost fantasy-like medical condition, and one writer's contemplations on suicide at the age of five. And so many more. Lucky for us, the stories are all like the best mysteries: better deepened, never dispelled."—Joe Loya, executive producer of the Bank Robber Diaries podcast and author of The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell

From the Publisher

03/01/2020

Mystery giants Anne Perry and Jeffery Deaver are known for tales of twisty suspense and thrilling whodunits, but in this volume, edited by Zackheim (creative nonfiction, Univ. of California, Los Angeles), they, along with 18 other crime fiction writers, explore the enigmas of their own lives. Some tackle actual mysteries—Hallie Ephron visited a medium when her friend was haunted by a ghost. But most contemplate personal journeys. Martin Limon considers how the Korean War has impacted his fiction. Jacqueline Winspear and Charles Todd discuss the gravity of writing about World War II. Connie May Fowler recalls how her abusive childhood led to her choice not to have children. William Kent Krueger delves into his mother's mental illness, and its influence on his storytelling, particularly his novel Ordinary Grace. VERDICT Genre fans are sure to be curious about this rare window into the lives of their favorite authors, as will anyone who enjoys compelling, candid tales.—Melissa Stoeger, Deerfield P.L., IL

Library Journal

2019-12-08
An anthology of true-life essays by "mystery writers revealing the mysteries of their lives."

San Francisco-based screenwriter and playwright Zackheim (The Bone Weaver, 2001, etc.) curates a collection of tales that range from upbeat to depressing. Some of the essays explain in depth how real-life occurrences directly influenced the storylines of the contributors' published novels; other essays mention such a connection elliptically or in passing. Mystery fans will be familiar with most or all of the contributors, but general readers will find one of the benefits of the anthology to be the discovery of new authors. One of the best-known contributors is Jeffery Deaver. His essay is a straightforward account of how he came to write bestselling mystery fiction despite numerous rejections from publishers and why he needed to internalize a simple lesson from his childhood before success arrived. In conclusion, the author writes, "just as in good detective fiction, the plot twist in which the mystery is solved was right before my eyes the entire time." The most detailed and creatively constructed essay is Carole Nelson Douglas' "Godfathers, Nancy Drew, and Cats," in which she explores her "past as prologue" to her career as a "veteran fiction writer who has wondered from childhood how ordinary people let their lives spiral into unhappiness, even violence and disaster." Of all the contributors, William Kent Krueger is the most direct at revealing how his real-life episodes influenced his writing. "For readers," he writes, "stories have the potential to do much more than entertain. They instruct; they enlighten; they encourage; they inspire. For authors, the blessings are much the same." Throughout, the contributors, which include Hallie Ephron, Martin Limón, Cara Black, Rhys Bowen, Jacqueline Winspear, and Anne Perry, explore a range of difficult topics—e.g., mental health breakdowns, domestic abuse, shattered romance, nightmarish experiences in war zones. The anthology demonstrates both that truth can be stranger than fiction and that truth can also morph into effective fiction.

An adequate collection that will have the most appeal for fans of the contributing authors.

Kirkus Reviews