Muddy the Water follows a detective in pursuit of a suspected murderer who manages to reinvent himself as a reporter for a small-town newspaper in South Carolina. Where did the idea for this novel come from?

In 1997 Matt drove south from Virginia to Hilton Head, SC, to start a job as a reporter for a small newspaper called the Hilton Head Island Packet. That’s when he started thinking: what if he got bumped off and the guy who showed up for work the next day at The Packet was an impostor? After all, Matt had been hired over the phone. No one had any idea what he looked like. That kernel of an idea rattled around in Matt’s head for decades. He even sketched out the plot and wrote down character names. Abraham Mink was one of them. But it never went beyond that until February 2020, when he relayed the rough idea to Jessica during a family dinner. “Let’s write it together” she said, her eyes on fire. A few days later, Jessica had contacted a coroner from Jasper County, SC, to confirm that a dead body could, in fact, travel seventy-five miles downstream and make it largely intact to the ocean. With the coroner’s blessing, we were off!

How did the mystery develop for this story? Did you plan it before writing, or did it develop organically?

As we mentioned, the kernel of the mystery occurred to Matt as he drove to his first job, but there were 30 more chapters to come up with. One day early in the pandemic, we both woke up before dawn, caffeinated ourselves thoroughly, and got on a Zoom together to map out the plot. On a whiteboard, we outlined about 20 chapters, which we hoped would be enough for a full novel. We found out after about six months of writing that the manuscript was a bit thin so we added a few more twists and turns to flesh it out.

What do you find is the hardest part about writing a mystery story; where you constantly have to give just enough to keep the mystery alive until the big reveal?

We find the hardest part of writing a mystery is laying the trail of hints that we leave for the readers. It has to be subtle enough not to give away the big reveal, but clear enough that the reader notices it. There also have to be carefully considered “red herrings” that also catch the readers’ attention and softly distract them from figuring out the ultimate ending. One of the good things about writing as a team is you can bounce those ideas back and forth to determine what will really work.

Can we look forward to more work from you soon? What are you currently working on?

Yes! Matt and Jessica are pleased to announce a sequel to Muddy the Water (whose title is yet to be determined) with many of the same characters, including Lillian Grimes, Ben Broome and Florence Park. It, too, will be grounded in facts with lots of believable twists and turns and a fantastic finale!

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