I started by Collection to combat boredom and depression. Crime was the answer and I let the hunt begin.

OK, so here's how my Collection began. Seven years ago, I was unemployed for 18 months. It was a long, depressing period that I look back on as one of the worst in my life. But at some point, I realized that I needed to read, that it would be the best way to pass the time - that there was just so much Freecell I could play. What I decided to do was start a collection, a collection of detective/crime series books. Only books in which the main character appears repeatedly would make the cut and since I was starting from square one, I needed to do some research.

But where did this all come from, you may ask? I've mentioned sports books, classics, trashy books and Pulitzer Prize winners; in this whole blog, I've never mentioned crime or thrillers or suspense or anything like that. True, it was a bit out of the blue but it all started with the discovery of the master himself - the great Elmore Leonard. About 23 years ago, when my youngest child was very young, I used to stroll around my neighborhood and I discovered a used-book store. The baby and I would walk over and check out their offerings. Browsing through the shelves, I pulled out a book called "52 Pick Up" and the rest, as they say, is history. Reading it was like seeing a miracle, one I believed only I knew anything about. This was in 1984, years before I had a computer at home, a decade before the Internet was widespread, and a time when I knew very few people where I lived and had very few friends. No one I knew had ever heard of Elmore Leonard. But every time I read one of his books - and I bought the three or four other titles the bookstore had in stock - I knew that I was experiencing something special. The guy is the best. Period. And he was the basis for the Collection. Stay tuned.