Kinda like in rap music, there’s a lovely “inside joke” tradition within the traditional mystery genre whereby mystery novels reference other/previous mystery novels and their authors.

For example: a character in Louise Penny’s contemporary mystery series might read Agatha Christie.

And an Agatha Christie character might read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock.

In my own manuscript it proved irresistible to include my own references to Agatha Christie and M.C. Beaton. I felt like these (sometimes subtle) references gave me street cred with my future readers, demonstrating that I’ve thoroughly studied the canon and therefore know what I’m doing. (I have watched every season of Murder, She Wrote and Columbo, after all.)

Also, devout mystery readers love hidden clues, and by naming my protagonist’s love interest “Hamish” (as a nod to M.C. Beaton’s Constable Hamish MacBeth), we’re sharing an understanding.

Also: when Louise Penny’s Inspector Armand Gamache reads a Miss Marple mystery (by Agatha Christie), Ms. Penny makes the character of Armand more real to her readers, because he is JUST LIKE US: he is reading the same stories we’ve read. Therefore he’s not a fictional character: he’s as real as we are.

And at the same time (as per Newton’s Third Law, kinda) when Louise Penny’s character reads a Miss Marple book, that act simultaneously emphasizes that Miss Marple is FICTIONAL. She is not real. It discredits Miss Marple as “one of us real people.”

AND SO … here’s a thought that blows my mind … What if I write a story wherein one of my characters reads a Louise Penny book, and then, since she’s still writing new mysteries, one of Louise Penny’s characters then reads a Heather McLeod book?

WHO IS REAL? Who is real-er? My character or Chief Inspector Gamache????

Crazy pants.

New goal: have Louise Penny reference a Heather McLeod book in one of her novels.