Author Interviews

Debra Sennefelder is an avid reader who reads across a range of genres, but mystery fiction is her obsession. Her interest in people and relationships is channeled into her novels against a backdrop of crime and mystery.

When asked if she wrote The Corpse Who Knew Too Much to address a specific issue, Debra said that she had written the book based on her interest in true crime podcasts and cold cases and that her main goal was to entertain readers. She added, “I got to listen to a lot of podcasts when I was writing this book. That was probably the best part aside from the recipe testing.”

Debra said, “I’d like for them to know I really love writing these stories and that my readers mean the world to me. I’d also love for them to know that their emails, notes and comments make my day.”

During her research, Debra had the opportunity to attend her town’s Civilian Police Academy. “During the program, I was able to go on a tour of the Level 4 (high security) prison in our town. It was an eye-opening hour.”

To learn more about Debra Sennefelder or The Corpse Who Knew Too Much at debrasennefelder.com. Did you like this interview? If so, click here to read more Behind the Story interviews from your favorite authors.

Giveaway of The Corpse Who Knew Too Much

The author is giving away one print copy of The Corpse Who Knew Too Much to one lucky commenter. Leave a comment below to enter. US and Canada mailing addresses only.

Joan Lipinsky Cochran is a South Florida-based writer whose crime and mystery novels focus on subcultures of American Judaism. The Hasidic Rebbe’s Son is the second book in the Becks Ruchinsky Mystery Series.

The beginnings of The Hasidic Rebbe’s Son

Joan said the story began when she met a young man at a party who told her about growing up in a strict Hasidic sect in London. “He said that when he left his community a half dozen years earlier, he’d received almost no secular education, spoke only Yiddish and came from a rabbinical family that dated back decades and expected him to follow the family tradition. He overcame what sounded like insurmountable challenges to leave his family, then enter mainstream life and attend a competitive British college.”

With that germ of an idea in her mind, Joan began researching the Hasidic lifestyle. “I talked with other ultra-Orthodox people about Hasidic communities and the heart-breaking choices people who leave them face. It struck me that a murder mystery was an ideal forum for exploring the secrets and community dynamics of this insular group.”

Joan also said that she’d set this book aside numerous times for fear of dishonoring a sect(s) of Judaism about which she initially knew little. After spending time researching and talking with friends who are Hasidic, she felt more comfortable approaching the subject. “I hope I’ve struck some sort of balance between what I see as the isolating, limiting lifestyle of many Hasidic individuals and the beauty of living a life infused with spirituality and meaning.”

The danger of secrets

“I‘ve addressed the perils of keeping secrets, even with the best intentions. The compulsion to hide what you know can be a personality quirk, but it is often rooted in ethnic customs, family dynamics and even religious tradition. Witness Omerta, the Italian code of silence in the face of authority. While investigating a religious young man’s death, my protagonist Becks Ruchinsky is frustrated to discover such codes are part of ultra-religious Jewish tradition and can destroy lives and lead to murder.”

Library joy

Joan said that while researching another book in this series, The Yiddish Gangster’s Daughter, she came across a familiar story. “I found a microfiche newspaper article about a family friend being fished out of the Miami River wearing ‘cement boots’—his feet encased in cement. I’d heard bits of the story as a youngster but was shocked and upset at learning the details of his death.”

As a former journalist and freelance writer, Joan said she’s more than a bit addicted to research. “Research is a wonderful way to spend days in the library and on the internet and as a great form of procrastination. Oh, yes, it also adds a great deal of depth and personality to my writing (at least I hope it does) .Also, I like to model myself after Sherlock Holmes, playing the violin to transform my mind into a zone where I can focus and get on with writing my novels. I suspect Holmes was a better musician than I am, though he reputedly used cocaine as well to stay focused.”

Learn more about Joan Lipinsky Cochran at www.joanlipinskycochran.com. Did you like this interview? If so, click here to read more Behind the Story interviews from your favorite authors.

Like Professor Molly, Frankie Bow teaches at a public university. That, however, is about where the similarities end. The author of The Professor Molly Mysteries, Frankie believes if life isn’t fair, at least it can be entertaining. The Influencer is the tenth Professor Molly Mystery.

Poking fun at higher education

“The Professor Molly Mysteries poke gentle fun at higher education,” Frankie said. “The budget-cut dance in particular is an endless source of bleak comedy. Your typical state university is getting its appropriations from the legislature reduced every year and they’re not allowed to raise tuition. So universities have to dig down and take less-prepared students in order to keep seats filled and tuition dollars flowing. But the universities can’t afford the academic and financial support those students need. They put off maintenance. And they can’t afford to hire faculty. So they cancel course sections, eliminate small majors, and increase class sizes. So now you have a bunch of students suddenly finding themselves not being able to get the classes or the academic support they need, they look around and see the buildings are falling apart and smell like mold, and all their professors are temporary lecturers so there’s no one who will be around to write them recommendation letters when they graduate and look for a job.”

The good news is that, at least in fiction, Frankie has come up with a way to handle the problem. “In my series, Mahina State University decides that what it really needs is to invest in a Student Retention Office, whose job is to badger the faculty until graduation rates go up. Fortunately, that’s just fiction and it would never happen in real life.”

The Influencer dives into social media

“The Influencer is about social media fame and how it distorts people’s behavior. Professor Molly builds an ‘ohana (a small rental unit) on her property. A social media influencer, looking for somewhere quiet to stay, rents it out. Chaos ensues. The social media influencer phenomenon is new, but the desire for attention is a timeless topic. Aesop’s fable of the mischievous dog reminds us that notoriety is not fame.”

Reality is stranger than fiction

“One thing that always surprises me is that the things in my books that are borrowed from real life are the things that readers are least likely to believe. For example, there are college professors who speak Pidgin. I know one or two. People in Hawaii do sometimes wear stockings, or hoodies, or other things that you might think would be uncomfortable to wear in warm weather. People experience the climate differently. And the tuition-paying-customer-is-always-right approach that I describe in the books is not an exaggeration. I thought the ‘Student Retention Office’ was my own mischievous invention, and in fact I was afraid that it was a little too on-the-nose. But no, go online and search “Office of Student Retention.” It’s real.”

Frankie went to jail…sort of

In researching a scene for one of the Professor Molly Mysteries, Frankie realized she didn’t know enough about the local jail. Determined to fix that, she went to the local police station. “I hung out in the little auxiliary building where they have the holding cells. I was writing a character who had to spend time there and I wanted to get a sense of it. There wasn’t much to see, just a really tiny waiting room with a vending machine, a reinforced door, and a service desk with bulletproof glass. It was not a happy vibe in there. I was glad to leave and walk out into the sunshine.”

Learn more about Frankie Bow at mahinastate.org. Did you like this interview? If so, click here to read more Behind the Story interviews from your favorite authors.

Gayle Leeson is a pseudonym for Gayle Trent. Truffles and Tragedy is the sixth book in the Down South Cafe Mystery series. Gayle said that she likes addressing the issue that things aren’t always what they seem. “I’ve examined variations on this theme throughout my books over the years; and with Truffles and Tragedy, I wanted to explore how easily someone could be framed for murder.”

How people play into Gayle’s work

Gayle was working in a virtual office one day when the idea for Truffles and Tragedy came to her. “I thought about how odd it was that all of these writers were together and yet in different places. People in different parts of the world were essentially witnesses to each other’s lives in real time. So, naturally, being a mystery writer, I began considering how horrific it would be if someone in our group were to be murdered with the rest of us being witnesses.”

She also said she loves to use research as an excuse to hear people’s stories. “It’s amazing what volumes of information you can glean for the cost of a lunch. I’ve talked with undercover police officers, FBI agents, forensic specialists, the great-niece of a female serial killer, psychologists, and even a mafioso!”

All about the readers

“I want my readers to know how very valuable they are. Not just to me, but to all authors. If they don’t read, review, tell others about our books, then we’ll eventually have to stop writing those books. In some cases, the publisher decides no one is interested in the series anymore. In other instances, the author might think the book or series is unpopular. And, I guess, in some cases, it is!”

Some of Gayle’s readers believe she’s like her protagonist, Amy Flowers, but that’s not really true. “Most of the time, I’d much rather be in front of a computer screen than in the kitchen. Some people write and tell me they wish the Down South Café was a real place they could visit. So do I! I’d love to pop in for a slice of pimiento cheese quiche and have a conversation with Homer, Dilly, and Walter.”

Learn more about Gayle Leeson on Facebook. Did you like this interview? If so, click here to read more Behind the Story interviews from your favorite authors.

Marc Jedel is the author of the Silicon Valley Mystery series. Fish Out of Water is the first book in his Ozarks Lake Mystery series.

Fish Out of Water – the beginnings

“My wife has felt a little cheated that no character in my other books was based on her—even in some exaggerated fashion,” Marc said. “As I started thinking about starting a second series, I thought it would be fun to set it in a small town in Arkansas so it would feel very different from my Silicon Valley Mystery series. My wife’s grandparents lived in Arkansas on a small ranch and I grew up in the south, spending time in and near Arkansas. That gave me the setting and I used some names and personalities of different relatives for characters in Fish Out Of Water. Alas, there’s still no character based directly on my wife. I’m pretty confident this has been a wise decision for my marriage.”

Marc’s main goal in writing Fish Out of Water was to tell a compelling, yet humorous, murder mystery. “It starts off with the struggle to uncover clues, turns into an avalanche of secrets that get revealed and ends with a rollicking race to the finish. Most cozy mysteries are written from the perspective of a single, typically female, character. I thought it would be fun to have both a woman and man providing first person point-of-view perspectives in roughly alternating chapters. They can go different places, sometimes at the same time, and have very different opinions on the same person. Having them be newlyweds adds the element of new-ness to their relationship as they are still learning about each other.”

It’s all about the escape

“I write my novels for fun and distraction and hope that the stories provide the same things to my readers. I view my novels as successful if they’ve made you smile, caused you to remember some unusual person or situation from your own past, or made you want to spend more time with the characters. My books aren’t the right fit for you if you’re looking for deep introspection, intense psychological thrillers, or dense, wordy prose where nothing much happens. I feel like there’s enough serious, intense, and scary already in people’s lives so reading should be an escape where you’ll enjoy yourself.

“Wingsuit flying, jousting, and bullfighting are all examples of crazy things that I’ve avoided doing in the name of research for this book. I’ve also not attempted tree shaping, extreme ironing, or competitive duck herding. Instead, as I wrote this book entirely during the COVID pandemic, I spent most of the time in self-isolation—also known as normal author behavior. Besides hiking, walking the dog, and participating in way too many Zoom calls, the crazy research for this novel was mostly confined to internet searches. Fortunately I haven’t had any visits from law enforcement. But I’m hopeful that some amount of crazy research will return to my life. After all, I’m planning to write more books and, as they say, life is stranger than fiction.”

Learn more about Marc Jedel at marcjedel.com. Did you like this interview? If so, click here to read more Behind the Story interviews from your favorite authors.