One of my favorite mystery authors, Reginald Hill, recently died at 75. His Dalziel and Pascoe series were always a treat. Funny, literary, thoughtful, compelling … they were fabulous.

I didn’t read them in order, so allow me to recommend one from mid-series: Pictures of Perfection. I don’t know what it would be like to read this one first, but it’s one of my favorites of his. It’s a book that few authors could pull off: the central mystery is trying to figure out if a crime has even been committed.

Reginald Hill taught me a few good things about writing a mystery series.

1) Try not to write the same thing twice. Some of the mysteries are grim and disturbing, some are light and hilarious. Some are both. Sometimes the bad guy gets a way with it. Write compelling characters, and people will enjoy seeing them in whole new situations.

2) Don’t be afraid to swing for the fences. He writers some mysteries and scenes that a lot of writers might have shied away from. Sometimes he fails (I couldn’t stand The Price of Butchers Meat, an audacious experiment in narrative, voice, and finishing Jane Austen’s unfinished book). But he tried.

3) I appreciate his comments about “aging” your characters. He estimated that his characters aged 1 year for every three “real” years. This meant that he could have characters age and grow, but he didn’t have to worry about the fact that one of his lead detective wears a denim suit and bell bottoms in early books and now has a smart phone. It’s convenient and feels “right” to me.

He taught me a lot more but those two, especially the first two, really stand out.