Crime writers create lots of fictional characters, many of whom we’ve come to love over the years. What’s a lot less common, though, is when authors write themselves as characters in their own stories. It’s not easy to pull that off and still create an engaging story that’s not autobiographical. But the results can be interesting. And of course, it’s fascinating to see how authors portray themselves.

Many people think that Agatha Christie’s Ariadne Oliver was at least semi-autobiographical. Like her creator, Mrs. Oliver is a detective novelist who’s gotten fed up with her main character (in Christie’s case, it was Hercule Poirot; in Mrs. Oliver’s case, it’s Sven Hjerson). The two have other parallels in life as well, and what’s really interesting is that Mrs. Oliver is a fictional character who creates fiction but solves (for her) real mysteries. Agatha Christie and Ariadne Oliver don’t share a name, but it’s not hard to believe that Christie could have used Mrs. Oliver as a stand-in for herself.

There are other novelists who use themselves – as they are in real life – as protagonists or other characters. For example, Teresa Solana’s The Sound of One Hand Killing is the third in her series about Barcelona private investigators Eduard and Josep “Pep” (who goes by the name Borja) Martínez. The Martínez brothers are twins, but they’re quite different in appearance, temperament, and outlook. Best-selling author Teresa Solana contacts the brothers to hire them for some research. She is planning a book about alternative therapies and wants the Martínez brothers to do some research for her. They’re always in need of a paying client, so they take on the job. As part of their research, the brothers sign up at Zen Moments, an alternative therapy center. Not long afterwards, Horaci Bou, director of Zen Moments, is murdered. Now the Martínez brothers are caught up in a lot more than research. And it only complicates matters when Borja’s neighbor Brian Morgan is killed. It turns out that Morgan was a CIA operative, so now, the brothers are drawn into two murders and international intrigue.

Graeme Macrae Burnet’s His Bloody Project begins as Burnet researches his grandfather’s life. As it happens, he comes across some information about another ancestor, seventeen-year-old Roderick Macrae. It seems that Macrae was arrested and tried for the murders of three people in Culduie, on Scotland’s Applecross Peninsula. The story soon moves from Burnet’s discovery of Macrae, to the narrative of Macrae’s life, the trial, and its outcome. That part of the story includes Macrae’s own memoir, trial transcripts, official documents, and newspaper clippings. It was assumed at the time that Macrae was guilty, but it turns out that there was a lot more to the murders and their background than it seemed on the surface. As that part of the story goes on, we learn about Macrae’s youth, his relationships in the small village he lived in, and what led to the murders. It’s an interesting fictional look at the author finding his own fictional roots, so to speak.

Anthony Horowitz’ The Word is Murder is the first of his Hawthorne and Horowitz series. In it, wealthy Diana Cowper pays a visit to a London funeral home, Cornwallis and Sons. She’s there to pre-plan her funeral. Six hours later, she is murdered. Police detective Daniel Hawthorne begins the investigation. He’s not easy to be around; in fact, he’s already in disgrace. But he is good at what he does. Hawthorne wants a ghost writer to tell the story of his cases, à la Dr. Watson. So, he hires Anthony Horowitz. Hawthorne has a way of getting under his biographer’s skin, but a job is a job. The two of them begin the task of finding out who killed Diana Cowper and why, and in the course of the investigation, they begin to learn to work together.

And then there’s Cat Connor’s Written in Leaves. Sisters Violet, Poppy, and Lily McClelland have inherited Spellbound Books, a New Zealand bookshop, from their parents. They do their best to keep the store going well, and they’re planning a major multi-author event to draw people in and broaden the store’s customer base. But Violet has a secret, something neither of her sisters knows. As the preparations for the major event go on, Violet has to work harder and harder to keep her secret. If the secret comes out, it would change everything for the store, and the McClelland sisters have enough to deal with. In several scenes in the story, Vitolet talks to the authors who are going to be at the big event; one of them is Cat Connor herself. It’s a clever way to share insights about writing, bookshops, and author events.

It really can be tricky to write about oneself, especially in a work of fiction. But some authors are able to make it work. Have you read books where the author is a character? If so, what did you think?

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Morris Day’s The Character.