Like so many other bored teens, I was a bored teen with a hobby. The only difference was mine was obsessing about crime.

Reading 'Ghost Waltz' and 'Nine and a Half Weeks' side by side, Day's vulnerabilities come shimmering into view. Both books examine the consequences of relationships marked by withholding - be it her lover's effortless domineering humiliation or her parents' shutting the door on discussing Herr Seiler's deep-seated Nazi ties.

As an inveterate lover of mystery, cracking the code of a writer's true identity has the same effect, for me, as tasting forbidden fruit.

Sarah Weinman Quotes