Secrets, Darkness and Mystery...

This morning as I was reading the prologue to a book about Alfred Hitchcock, I began thinking about his films that I've enjoyed ... the mystery, the suspense, the "hold your breath" waiting for the other shoe to drop, and thought back to where this love of suspense and mystery began.

I credit Carolyn Keene and Nancy Drew for my humble beginnings with the heart racing, breath stopping lure of discovering what lies behind the closed door...and do you dare to open it.

I loved every one of the Nancy Drew mysteries. The titles alone made my eyes pop open..."The Secret of the Old Clock", "The Clue of the Tapping Heels", "The Mystery at the Moss Covered Mansion", "The Hidden Staircase", "The Secret in the Old Attic"... I was spellbound by the daring and the intelligence of Nancy, Bess, Ned and George. Never mind that Nancy had her trusty red roadster to get her from mystery to mystery and trusty Hannah Gruen to make sure all her needs were met...I was enthralled by the sense of daring and danger.

It wasn't a stretch for me to stay with that genre once I had finished the Nancy Drew series and outgrown that level of reading material. Daphne DuMaurier slithered into my heart and replaced Carolyn Keene's innocent mystery with much darker tales, and I cannot forget Charlotte Bronte's Gothic heroine Jane Eyre...the book that continues to be near the top of my favourites.

This has made me realize that who we are at age 10 continues to grow and flourish with us as we age and I can still "feel" how I felt holding those Nancy Drew books, sitting in my bed long past the time when lights were meant to be out, reading along with my flashlight illuminating and adding to the mystery.