How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love a Mystery

I never planned to write legal mystery. I'd had in mind something stodgier -- solid stories that could stand on a shelf with all the great works that I'd encountered over the years. One end of that shelf is occupied by the writings of nineteenth century naturalists. I studied biology in college. In those years I fed my inner writer on the scratchings of meadow wanderers like Thoreau and Muir and Darwin. Thinking back on it now, I admit I got too focused on those tweedy guys. For example, one sum...