Oh! We're released!

I have spent much of my life avoiding mysteries. As a child, I would hide behind my father's chair whenever the music on Murder She Wrote became too creepy. I used to beg my parents to let me stay up Thurday nights and watch Mystery on PBS with them, only to run to another room in the house when shots were fired or bodies found. I went to Final Destination as a teen, but can't say that I saw it-- I mostly huddled in my chair under my jacket waiting to go home. In college, while my friends saw The Ring, I bought a ticket to The Santa Claus II. Those who know me well know that I am notorious for flipping to a book's end after only reading the first 1/3 or 1/2 (I determine whether or not I'll finish it depending on a) if I liked the ending, b) if I am surpised by the ending, c) if I have already figured out the ending or d) if I don't like the ending at all). I don't handle surpise very well, even more so when malice or blood are involved.
For these reasons, it is so very strange to me that I have developed an interest in the very genre I have developed so many tactics to avoid. I now relish pulling out the important pieces and putting them together before the detective (who is inevitably emotionally scarred/unavailable, addicted to something and/or devestatingly handsome) reveals the "truth." I like reading about the rationale behind both the perpetrated crime and the detective work used to solve it.
I even get a thrill from the "scary stuff," no longer turning away at crucial (but often blood-soaked) moments, looking for more clues instead. Additionally, I am now disappointed by scary things that simply don't live up to their promise or are badly written. I want to be scared! Is that too much to ask?
I've recently seen the Second Sight series in its entirety and followed DI Tanner about various London crime scenes as he slowly goes blind and solves crimes--I am almost certain that this is one of the series I "watched" on Mystery (from the kitchen or hallway) in the late 90's. I have taken to reading mysteries, both academic and paranormal enjoying Dan Brown's The DiVinci Code, Angels and Demons, and Deception Point, Caldwell and Thomason's The Rule of Four and MaryJanice Davidson's Undead series (not scary in the least, but not something I would have generally gone for). I finished Bram Stoker's Dracula this summer (which was a wonderful--and frightening-- introduction to the world of Horror Fiction) and have begun The Historian, twice. I had an unexplainable desire to see the Emily Rose Movie, but think I might wait for the DVD. The list continues, but I won't bore you with it....
I think I've come to understand the joy of a "good scare." There are all kinds of physical and visceral reactions to being unsure about what might happen next, particularly when someone's life is on the line, culminating in a kind of "natural high," if you will. Perhaps I've learned to take such things a little less seriously. Or maybe I like the challange. I still shy away from grusomey-gorey stuff (yick!), but these days, I'm up for a bit of Mystery.

"When you go home tonight and the lights have been turned out and you are afraid to look behind the curtains and you dread to see a face appear at the window-- why, just pull yourself together and remember that after all there are such things." ~Dr. Van Helsing, Dracula.