Author Interview: Deborah Sprinkle

Okay, ya'll, I don't read many mysteries, but I do love me some mystery authors. Especially this one. Deborah (or Debbie, as I call her) Sprinkle is on of my Scrivenings Press family, and she's so fun to hang out with. I think you're going to love getting to know her more today too.

What made you choose to write mysteries? Do you have a specific type of mystery you prefer over another?

I grew up reading English mysteries. My mom loved them and so that’s what I read too. Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham and Ngaio Marsh who were collectively called the Queens of Crime. As I got older, I branched out to other authors, but I still gravitate to British mysteries. 
I don’t care much for what’s called hard boiled or noir. They contain too many graphic details and bad language for me. I like the ones that take some brain power—that aren’t so easy to figure out. 

Are any of your characters based off of real people in your life? 

There are a few who I have written with a certain person in mind, but I don’t make the character exactly like he or she. I take characteristics from this one or that one and mix them together to make an interesting character. 
I have one character I based off one of my favorite TV detectives. You’ll have to read my books to see if you can guess which one it is. 

Which one of your characters do you think is most like you and why? 

I think Madison Long in my first book is most like me. I heard you should write about what you know. So I made her a chemistry teacher on summer break who lives on a small lake in the Midwest. I taught chemistry for ten years and we lived on a lake for many years in Indiana. In fact, Madison’s house is modeled after the house we had. But as the books progressed, Madison became her own person, which is as it should be.
 
Do you use your chemistry history in any of your stories? 

In my first book, chemistry was a big part of the story. After that, I tried to bring in something that touch on chemistry in each book in the first series. When I started my second series about two private investigators in a small town in Missouri, I decided to stop emphasizing the chemistry, but I ended up writing in a character who is a retired chemistry teacher with other skills!
 
What’s one of the strangest things you’ve ever had to research for your stories? 

I’ve researched some weird stuff through the years! I keep waiting for some government agency to come knocking on my door wanting to know what exactly is going on in this household. I’ve researched everything from what caliber bullet would penetrate a flack vest to what exactly is brimstone. Brimstone, by the way, is an old name for sulfur or any rock containing sulfur.
 
You just had a Mac and Sam Mystery release in August, but you’re releasing another book in your Pleasant Valley Series next year. Can you tell us how the two series differ? 

I’m actually releasing a third Mac and Sam book next year as well. Why I thought I could write two books in one year, I’m not sure! I’m not usually a fast writer. Anyway, my first series, Trouble in Pleasant Valley, is romantic suspense. The Mac and Sam series is mystery. The differences are that the first series tends to have a more serious tone overall with more action and romantic elements. Being a romance, there must be a satisfying end to the romance at the end along with the bad guys getting caught. In my mystery series, there’s more reasoning things out and a little less action. Although, I still manage to get them in a lot of scrapes. I try to keep my audience guessing who dun it until close to the end of the book. And, although there is a romantic element, it doesn’t have to get taken care of by the end of the book. Both are very satisfying to write for different reasons.
 
And last but not least, can you leave us with one thing very few people know about you? 

When I was a kid, my mom mixed my peas with applesauce to get me to eat them, and to this day, I love eating my peas with applesauce. LOL
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Well, that was unexpected but interesting! Ha!
I hope you enjoyed getting to know a bit more about Deborah Sprinkle. Keep reading to find out more about her newest book as well as where to keep up with her.

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The Case of Mistaken Identity

Private Investigator Mackenzie Love manages to get into trouble on a simple shopping trip where she finds herself at the business end of a gun. It’s clear her attacker mistakes her for someone else, but who? And why is her look-alike in so much trouble? 

Mac enlists the help of her partners, Samantha Majors and Miss P, and Detective Jake Sanders to find her doppelgänger and solve the case of mistaken identity. 

In the meantime, Mr. Fischer of Fischer Industries comes to the private detectives for help with a problem of his own. As Mac and Sam work on his case, they begin to wonder if the two cases are related. 

Can Mac and Sam unravel the clues and get justice for both Mac’s look-alike and Mr. Fischer?

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Deborah Sprinkle has written three romantic suspense novels that together make up the series Trouble in Pleasant Valley. She’s won many awards, including one for a short story called Progressive Dinner, which is the inspiration for her new mystery series, Mac and Sam Mysteries, set in Washington, Missouri. The first book, The Case of the Innocent Husband is available on Amazon, and now the second book, The Case of Mistaken Identity, is as well. (August, 2023) She is currently working on the third book, The Case of the Stolen Memories. Connect with Deborah at https://authordeborahsprinkle.com/ or https://www.facebook.com/deborah.sprinkle.5/