PAGES : A Who’s Who for Whodunits

Rosemary Herbert was just wondering. Was that handgun lying next to Patricia D. Cornwell’s word processor a prop, something a best-selling mystery writer might keep around for a little verisimilitude?

“Don’t touch it!” Cornwell boomed when Herbert posed precisely this question. “It’s loaded!”

Such are the eccentricities that Herbert encountered while researching “The Fatal Art of Entertainment: Interviews With Mystery Writers.”

Just published by G.K. Hall & Co., the book is a collection of conversations with well-known sleuthmeisters--among them, Julian Symons, the 81-year-old dean of the genre.

Herbert, a Harvard University librarian, said the book traces her own passion for mysteries, beginning as a child. Her love of intrigue has continued into her forthcoming “Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing.”

Herbert also has written four chapters of her own mystery novel--set, of all places, at Harvard’s Widener Library.