Death in the Manor centers around a detective investigating a suspicious death, but soon finds the case is more about money, family legacy, and civic rot. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

The setup for Death in the Manor grew from a desire to explore how a person trying to flee their past can be inexorably drawn back into the very world they left behind. My protagonist, Dante Villehart, arrives in Edenvale seeking asylum from his failures as an investigative journalist. However, the murder of someone from his past, Lila Summers, forces his hand. This catalyst triggers a perfect storm of events: a sudden inheritance roots him to the town, while his sharp methods catch the attention of Marissa Cole, founder of Enigma Solutions Services. Dante’s transition into corporate and criminal investigations sets the stage for the novel’s broader themes of wealth and systemic corruption. His first major case—the highly suspicious death of Roland Astor—serves as the magnifying glass for the story. I wanted to show how a single high-society death could unravel an entire community. As Dante digs beneath the surface of the Astor family legacy, the narrative spirals from a traditional whodunit into a dark exploration of institutional rot. He uncovers a toxic web of embezzlement, a predatory pyramid scheme, and complicit government officials. The inspiration was to build a high-stakes ecosystem where the pursuit of truth becomes a lethal endeavor, forcing Dante to confront the reality that powerful entities will readily kill to protect their empires.

Were there classic mystery or noir influences that shaped the atmosphere of the book?

Absolutely. The atmosphere of Death in the Manor is deeply indebted to both the Gothic suspense of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and the cynical, hard-boiled world of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep. What fascinated me most about both masterpieces is how they utilize wealth and architecture; the grand mansions in those stories cease to be mere backdrops and instead become living, breathing characters dripping with secrets.

From du Maurier, I drew inspiration for the haunting weight of legacy and the oppressive, psychological atmosphere that a grand estate can inflict on its inhabitants. From Chandler, I adopted the gritty noir sensibility where a detective must navigate a labyrinth of upper-class decadence and institutional corruption. By blending Rebecca’s atmospheric dread with The Big Sleep’s sharp-edged cynicism, I aimed to create a setting where the grandeur of the manor serves as a beautiful facade hiding a deeply decayed moral core.

Astor Manor feels almost alive — full of secrets, old wounds, and performances. How did you approach building the setting?

I approached Astor Manor not as a static backdrop, but as an active antagonist in the narrative. For a mystery driven by a death this suspicious, it was vital that the architecture itself echo the deception of its inhabitants. I wanted the manor to possess its own agency, slowly revealing its secrets to Dante in a calculated, piecemeal fashion. To achieve this, the physical space shifts conceptually throughout the investigation; even when Dante revisits a room, the atmosphere feels entirely different based on what he has just uncovered.

There is a deliberate parallelism between the mansion and the family. The wealthy family members wear masks and perform for society, hiding their rot behind closed doors. Similarly, the manor hides its history behind physical illusions—secret rooms, forgotten corridors, and hidden spaces. By designing the setting this way, uncovering the architectural secrets of the manor becomes just as vital to solving the mystery as unraveling the family’s lies. The building and the bloodline are bound together, both refusing to give up their ghosts without a fight.

Can you give us a glimpse inside the next installment of The Dante Villehart Redemption Series? Where will it take readers?

The final installment of the trilogy, titled Knight in Gale: Vengeance, plunges Dante into his most personal and psychologically grueling case yet. The plot centers on a ruthless serial killer whose calling card is leaving a dead nightingale at every crime scene, accompanied by a twisted variation of a quote from John Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale. This case forces Dante to confront his past failures: years ago, he botched an investigation with this exact signature, resulting in the wrongful accusation of an innocent person. Though his core intuition wasn’t entirely wrong, the real killer—or killers—are now back. They are actively taunting Dante, deliberately targeting the people closest to him to exploit his vulnerabilities.

This book serves as the emotional crucible of the trilogy. To survive, Dante must undergo a massive internal shift, allowing himself to be vulnerable and finally letting others in—a stark contrast to his past habit of isolating himself under the guise of “protecting” those he loves.

While Knight in Gale: Vengeance beautifully concludes the Dante Villehart Redemption arc, it is definitely not the end of his journey. Dante’s investigative career continues in a new spin-off series, The Dante Villehart Files. I am thrilled to share that the first three books of this new series are already fully written: Ties That Bind, The Last Session of Dr. Jillian Bruce, and Vanished in the Labyrinth. Readers can look forward to much more noir suspense on the horizon.

Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Amazon