I was the quiet child in a noisy family. I was always fascinated by the stories the adults around me told. Some, I realized as I became old enough to reason, could not have happened. When I became older still (and, I trust, wiser), I knew that, factual or not, the stories contained kernels of truth.  The stories we told defined us. True or not, they reflected our hopes and dreams, all the things we could at least imagine ourselves to be. And, thus, I became a fiction writer - a creator of mysteries - the kind where good always triumphs over evil.