Anyone who knows me well, knows I'm a voracious reader and have been all my life. I have no idea how many books I've read in my lifetime, but it surely numbers in the thousands.
A mystery lover since the days of Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden and the Dana Sisters, as an adult I naturally gravitated toward detective stories, especially British ones, reading them almost exclusively. Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy L. Sayers, Dorothy Eden, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ruth Rendell, among so many others including American Mary Roberts Rinehart. Oh I forgot to mention the Jules Verne adventure stories! Though I'm drawn to those old books and authors, I must also mention my obsession with current day writer Martha Grimes and her Richard Jury mysteries. But I digress.
In 2009 or 2010, my husband and I got ourselves each a Kobo E-Reader. Not as fancy as Kindles or Nooks, they still did the job and we liked them well enough. In fact, we both went through 2 of them.
Last year, Patrick began having trouble with his latest reader not holding a charge; finally he gave up on it. I decided I'd get him a new Kindle for Christmas. He surprised me by getting me one as well. I can't begin to tell you how much I love my Kindle!
Being the cheapskate that I am, I promptly loaded my reader with a few hundred free books from Amazon. I searched 'Classic British mysteries', 'Classic Detective fiction', and every other set of key words I could think of to bring up books that were up my alley and greedily snagged one after another. I especially love vintage books written between the very late 1800s all the way through to 1960. I love the turn-of-the-century books as much for the lavish use of archaic words I've never heard of as for the overall flavor and atmosphere of the times.
In this book 'frenzy', I downloaded a book by Louis Tracy, The House Round the Corner. I liked it pretty well, so I searched Amazon for more Louis Tracy. I found LOTS!
I have an odd habit of reading by author. If I find an author I like, I have to read everything I can get my hands on by that person. So once I hit on Louis Tracy I had to get as many as I could find.
Each Louis Tracy book left me thinking, 'Wow, this guy was a pretty good writer! Why have I never heard of him?' I decided to see what I could find out about him. Strangely, I could not find out much:
In a nutshell, Louis Tracy (1863-1928) was a very prolific writer born in Liverpool. He was well-educated at home and in France and became a newpaper reporter and eventually a soldier and correspondent.
Tracy's novels are wide ranging and encompass mysteries, romance, history, politics, adventures and reportedly some science fiction, though I have yet to locate the latter.
He writes extremely well and his stories have the ability to suck me in and keep me hanging till the end. He peoples his books with very well developed characters and plots, accompanied by vividly painted landscapes and scenery.
Perhaps my literary education is severely lacking, but I never heard of this author in my life but I'm so happy I discovered him at the ripe age of nearly 65. I don't think I'd have appreciated him as much even ten years ago.
If you enjoy turn of the century mysteries, romances and adventure, please search out Louis Tracy if you've never read him. I hope it enriches your reading life as much as it did mine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Tracy
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