Award winning author Jeffrey Siger remembers when his parents let him get his first library card.

The story he told to a large audience who came to listen to him discuss his life as a writer connected to the event hosts, Friends of the Fountain Hills Library.

“Libraries do what government agencies should be doing,” Siger said. “They provide a safe place for kids, they offer resources for researchers, and they are a vital part of a community.”

“Fountain Hills must be a very strong community,” he said.

Siger, who lives on the Aegean island of Mykonos, has written 10 books about the island.

His books are fast-paced thrillers set on Mykonos. Featuring Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis, Mykonos provides the backdrop to his stories.

Siger, who originally is from Pittsburgh, Pa., was a lawyer before he left that career to write.

“When I grew up, I thought I was going to be a writer,” he said. “But I became another kind of writer as a lawyer.”

He added that when he decided he wasn’t “going to live forever,” he made up his mind to go to Mykonos and write books.

And write he has. Siger has been named “Greece’s thriller novelist of record” by the Sunday New York Times Book Review.

Siger’s newest book, out in early April and available at his talk, “The Mykonos Mob,” follows in what he describes as “aimed at exploring serious societal issues confronting modern day Greece in a tell-it-like-it-is style while touching upon the country ancient roots.”

Siger said he loves Mykonos, and despite the fact that it has greatly changed in the 35 years he has lived there, the books he has written are “designed to entertain with a deeper theme.”

Siger said he tries to write every day. He writes a mystery blog, “Mystery is Everywhere,” with 10 other mystery writers.

He describes his writing style as a “seat-of-the-pantser,” as opposed to an “outliner.”

“I think my characters are what develop the stories,” he said. “I don’t do outlines on paper. I do them in my head, but I think stories are driven by the characters, and they take the story to where it needs to go.”

As a reader, Siger said he tends to read non-mysteries such as books by August Wilson and Cormac McCarthy.

After Fountain Hills, Siger was presenting his new book at The Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale. His book tour then will take him to Houston, Denver, Pittsburgh, New York and several other stops through the end of the year before he returns to Mykonos.