Calling Jack Klugman
As a teenager, I wanted to become a coroner when I grew up.
Odd, I know. It’s not a profession many young girls aspire to (especially back then before the days of CSI), but it’s what I wanted, what I absolutely had my mind set on. The decision could totally be blamed on Quincy—the fictional doctor from Quincy, M.E., the 70’s TV show.
Every day after school, I’d race home to watch reruns of the show, which were on right after the soap opera General Hospital (which happens to have a character named Heather Webber, but that’s a blog for another day). No matter what the cause of death, Quincy always figured it out. A potential plague? He was there to save the world just in the nick of time. A murder? He and his colorful assortment of cohorts solved the crime with ease, all in the span of sixty minutes. Less, really, if you consider the commercials.
In college, I was a biology major on my way to being pre-med, but it didn’t take long to figure out that I wasn’t cut out (ha-ha) to become a medical examiner. One mention of dissecting a cat and I was suddenly rethinking my career plan. Slicing open people? Fine by me. Critters? No way. (By the way, I’m not sure what that says about me…)
As it happened, life interrupted any plans I may have had anyway. Before that year was through, I’d left school, become a wife, then a mom, all of which, at eighteen, was a lot tougher than anything Quincy ever had to do.
Looking back, I can clearly see that it wasn’t Quincy’s job that had intrigued me. It was the puzzle-solving. The mystery. The characters, the plots, the twists and turns.
Solving mysteries was what I truly wanted to do, and though it took me a while, I found the elusive career I was searching for by writing mystery novels.
Last week, I learned that my book Trouble in Spades, A Nina Quinn Mystery, was nominated for Malice Domestic’s Agatha Award for Best Novel (for a complete list of nominees, go to www.malicedomestic.org). I can’t even tell you how absolutely thrilled and humbled I am. After all, there are so many great books out there…I’m just so grateful for the honor.
However, I can tell you that I hope Quincy, M.E. will continue to inspire young girls to become coroners—or mystery authors by default. Look for it, it’s still in reruns! (2 p.m. here in the Cincinnati area, UPN.)
~heather
(P.S. Congrats to The Little Blog’s guest blogger, Laura Bradford, on her Best First Novel Agatha nomination for Jury of One.)
**Currently reading: Witch Way to Murder by Shirley Damsgaard (another Agatha nominee for Best First! Congratulations to you too, Shirley!)
