The First Mystery I Ever Read by Sally Carpenter
I attend a monthly genre book club at my local library. On the night when we discussed one of my cozies (The Quirky Quiz Show Caper), the opening icebreaker question was, “What was the first mystery you ever read?”
The answers were Nancy Drew, Encyclopedia Brown and Agatha Christie. One man read mostly science fiction, not mysteries. Some readers didn’t know. But I instantly had my answer at hand.
When I was about ten years old, my parents gave me two books for Christmas: the first titles in the Trixie Belden series, “The Secret of the Mansion” and “The Red Trailer Mystery.” The books were published by Whitman, which released a number of hard-back (pressboard) juvenile books and TV-show tie-ins. The books had brightly colored covers and many interior illustrations, rare among modern print books..
Julie Campbell wrote the first six books, starting in 1948. After that, various in-house writers under the pseudonym Katheryn Kenny penned the other stories for a total of 39. New titles ended in 1986.
Trixie was 13 years old and like me in many ways. She had short, curly hair as well as two older brothers that teased her, a homemaker mother and a home in the country. Unlike the stoic, always brave Nancy Drew, Trixie and the other characters showed a wide range of emotions, like real people. Trixie made mistakes. The girl and her friends and brothers also started a club that did good works for the community. Trixie was likeable, believable and interesting.
Being a teenager, Trixie’s mysteries were quite tame and generally involved finding missing or hidden items or persons. No murder in these clean reads. And with no computers or cell phones, Trixie and friends used old-fashioned footwork and deduction.
When I started writing mysteries in 2008, I boned up on other mystery authors, but Trixie has always held a special place in my heart. Maybe that’s why I write cozies and not hard-edge crime.
Sally Carpenter writes the Sandy Fairfax Teen Idol and the Psychedelic Spy series for Cozy Cat Press.