Casey wrote about her inspiration in Jessica Fletcher on Wednesday. Mine had to be that combination of the cerebral sleuths that were so popular a generation ago. I wanted to be Ellery Queen or Nero Wolfe (sadly I look more like him these days than I care to.) Hell, I wouldn’t have minded being Philo Vance, even with his bad reputation for annoyance.

I was an exceedingly smart adolescent in a world where that’s not appreciated. Speaking as a teacher, it’s still not. But the way that I felt I could escape was to be the hero of those books, the smart guys who are actually appreciated (and frequently paid) for their intelligence.

It certainly looked like more fun than high school. The main character frequently spoke in riddles to the rest of the world. It seemed a bit fun to use vocabulary that no one else knew and smile. Or to utter some remark that would clear up the entire matter if anyone else understood the implications. Holmes and his dog in the nighttime.

There’s accolades galore. People sought out these characters to work and help. Often the characters didn’t deign to help until the murder was committed. Of course, the books would have been very short had the sleuth stepped in and taken care of things before the murder. They frown on 12 pages books in the industry.

Even so, it made me want to inhabit their world and the closest I could come to that was to write my own books. My characters are more flawed than these men, but I still get a thrill in writing about the triumph of the intellect. Smart can be good.