Original Sin was my try at my very favorite kind of cozy mystery: the old house out in the country at Christmas time, a gathering of friends, a blizzard that cuts phone and electric wires, and a body in the library. I knew when I put a library in that house that one day there would be a body in it. The original version of this book is better than the published one. The setup is longer; you get to meet the victim, and know her better. The editor insisted the crime had to take place earlier, so I did a lot of cutting, and the book suffered for it. But the solution is still very clever -- though St. Martin's Press didn't like it and turned it down.