Personal Narrative: My First Murder

At age eleven, I investigated my first murder.
I was staying with my grandparents at the time. We had dropped my mother off at the hospital the night before for her surgery. Because transplants must be done within a short period of time after the organ is removed from the donor, packing commenced in a rushed and disorderly frenzy the moment the call came in. That had been hours earlier. Now, sitting criss-cross on the bed in my grandparents tidy guest room, with my half-open suitcase on the floor beside the bare dresser, it struck me that I had nothing to do. I had neither the inclination nor the ability to sleep, as the anxiety over my mother’s well-being, and I had brought little more than clothes, a towel, and my toothbrush to distract me. …show more content…
Among worn edges and faded covers of old mystery novels, which were her favorite, there was one which bore a title that caught my eye; And Then There Were None sounded ominous enough, and I figured the fear of the threat posed by a fictional killer was much less stressful than the fear that my mother would suffer complications during or after her surgery. I quickly became engrossed in the story and flew through the book that same night. About a three weeks later, I’d gone through the entire stack, but by then, mom was out of the hospital and we were able to go home. Everything had gone well, and though I no longer required a distraction, it finally occurred to me that that wasn’t what I appreciated most about the books. I realized that I relished the challenge they put in front of me and sought out more stories in the genre. Most follow a familiar formula, presenting the victim, the suspects, and the intermittent clues, until the sleuth is able to put all the pieces together, and offer an elaborate and dramatic

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