David Bell, a writer and an associate professor of English at Western Kentucky University, moved to Bowling Green five years ago. He was born in Cincinnati and was educated at Indiana University, Miami University and the University of Cincinnati. He is married to Molly McCaffrey, who also teaches in the WKU English department. Bell is a lifelong fan of the Cincinnati Reds and enjoys watching movies and taking long walks.

Bell has received much praise for the four novels he has published. “Cemetery Girl” (2011) is a psychological thriller about a missing 12-year-old girl, told from her father’s point of view, that is set in Bowling Green. One reviewer called it “a haunting meditation on the ties that bind parent to child, husband to wife, brother to brother.”

In Bell’s most recent mystery, “The Hiding Place” (2012), a young woman searches for the truth of what happened when her little brother disappeared 25 years ago. “Never Come Back,” Bell’s newest work, will be released Oct. 1. For more information, check out the author’s website at www.davidbellnovels.com.

Bell enjoys all sorts of fiction and some history, usually choosing based on whether the story sounds interesting or he has liked other work by the author. “If I simply read one genre or one kind of story, I would quickly grow bored,” he said.

Bell grew up in a family of readers. His parents, especially his dad, always had a book, newspaper or magazine in their hands. They read to him frequently when he was small, as did his sister, who is now a teacher. He particularly remembers loving his copy of Virginia Lee Burton’s delightful classic, “Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel,” which he read over and over again.

After many years of school, Bell loves the freedom to read whatever he wants. He prefers to read stretched out on the couch, in bed or on his large, shady patio. He tries to finish everything he begins but believes that “one of the benefits of being an adult is giving up on a book that doesn’t grab me. There are too many good books to spend time on bad ones.”

He is currently in the middle of the Western “Arrow in the Sun” by T.V. Olsen, which was published in 1969 and made into the movie “Soldier Blue.” Bell has always enjoyed reading fiction about the American West and finds Olsen to be a consistently fine writer.

Bell’s list of favorite authors, which may change based on the day of the week, includes Rosemary Sutcliff, Flannery O’Connor, Ernest Hemingway, Jhumpa Lahiri, Richard Ford, Raymond Carver, Louis L’Amour, Ed Gorman, Stephen King, Richard Matheson and Anne Rice.

Titles Bell recommends are “A Thousand Acres” by Jane Smiley, “The Eagle of the Ninth” by Sutcliff, “The Last Good Kiss” by James Crumley, Larry McMurtry’s “Lonesome Dove” and “The Executioner’s Song” by Norman Mailer.

On a deserted island, Bell would prefer to read something long and complex, perhaps Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” or Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.”

“I could finish them and then start over again instead of making a useful raft out of bamboo and palm fronds,” he said.

Or if feeling ironic he might bring “Robinson Crusoe” by Defoe or “Tarzan Of The Apes” by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

— Libby Davies, Barnes & Noble Booksellers