THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
TRAVEL Section

Trips can be killers - if you're lucky KETCHIKAN, Alaska - Paddling a kayak up an inlet, I began searching for the dead body.

It was a perfectly sunny day and my tour guide was explaining the history of Ketchikan's Creek Street, a boardwalk once lined with bordellos, now topped with restaurants and T-shirt emporiums. But my mind was on Louise Root, a onetime gold-mine cook, whose throat was slit and body dumped in these same waters.

I had learned of the woman's fate on the opening pages of a mystery novel, set in contemporary southeast Alaska. Although The Curious Eat Themselves, by John Straley, is a work of fiction, you couldn't have convinced me that afternoon.

The setting was just as the author had described it, down to the cruise-ship passengers peering over the guardrails to the murky water below. Except now they were staring at me and the rest of my kayaking group.

Instead of being a mere tourist, I had a cameo in a fictional drama.

It's time to confess my guilty secret: Instead of reading ponderous classics about travel destinations, I prefer murder mysteries. When planning a trip, I'll start searching out a detective story even before I check air fares.

What mysteries lack in intellectual credentials they more than make up in atmosphere. And they also provide an added plus to my trips: I'm constantly stumbling into crime scenes.

Tough act to follow

Thanks to my less-than-scholarly reading, I've tracked the evil-hearted through Jerusalem , the Yucatan and Los Angeles. I've tussled with bank robbers in Tuscany, conjured up Confederate ghosts in Cajun country, and even pondered whodunits in the White House.

Finding the appropriate book sometimes takes a little detective work. I often find novels recommended in travel books, among long lists of suggested pre-trip reading. The list can resemble a college syllabus and is often as esoteric. But if there's a mystery included, my search is over. Alternatively, a local bookstore, preferably one specializing in crime fiction, can offer suggestions. And finally, you can check bookstores when you arrive at your destination.

I'm not pretending that a traveler bound for Tuscany is better off reading Any Four Women Could Rob the Bank of Italy than The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, but I know which book they're more likely to crack on the plane.

And don't think this reading is a waste of time.

Mysteries are usually written by knowledgeable local authors. It's a story's ambience and setting, and not the pretzel logic of the crime, that makes a memorable tale.

A good mystery will feature distinct characters that make a city or region unique. James Lee Burke's novels crackle with Cajun rouges and renegades. After a few hours with one of his novels, New Iberia, La., can never be the same simple, sleepy town.

Likewise, Dallas visitors won't want to meet characters from Big Town, by Dallas Morning News staff writer Doug J. Swanson. But they'll get a peek at the city's fast-money ways through the eyes of hustlers and a motivational speaker. And they'll probably pay more attention to noises in adjoining hotel rooms.

If I finish a mystery before a trip, I start seeing characters at every turn. I'm almost surprised I wasn't arrested at a diner in New Mexico, where I encountered a member of the Navajo Tribal Police. I stared at the officer throughout lunch because I was sure he was Lt. Joe Leaphorn, a character in Tony Hillerman's Navajo country mysteries. I probably looked like a deranged traveler obsessed with authority figures.

Holy smokes

Mysteries also can provide new travel ideas and insights. It was Mary Stewart's This Rough Magic that inspired me to visit Corfu's fantastic Palm Sunday parade. On that day, church leaders take the coffin holding the mummified body of St. Spiridion to carry it through the main city in a joyful celebration. In the novel, the parade is a colorful backdrop to the mystery. For my wife and me, it was the travel highlight of our honeymoon in Greece.

And it was an Israeli police detective who clued me into the Jerusalem Syndrome - a documented psychological phenomenon that affects some visitors to the Holy Land. As Crimes of the City, by Robert Rosenberg, explains, the city's biblical atmosphere is too much for some visitors. Overcome by historic sites, they snap, convinced they're holy figures themselves. A ward in Jerusalem 's psychiatric hospital specializes in treating the victims, who are sometimes found naked, preaching on the streets. Armed with this knowledge, I surveyed my fellow travelers to Israel, trying to guess their biblical alter egos and wondering when they'd unleash them.

Finally, mystery novels have expanded my travel wish list.

Thanks to an Aaron Elkins novel, I know I'll someday have to visit the imposing abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel, France. But after reading Old Bones, I'll make sure to double-check the tide tables before I stroll out to the beach.

Wouldn't want to end up like that unfortunate man in the first chapter.

Larry Bleiberg is assistant Travel editor at the THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS