The Answers You Seek follows a man who returns to his hometown for his father’s funeral and discovers that his father may have a connection to a swingers club and a murder. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?

My own father had several affairs before leaving my mother in 1994 after 30 years of marriage. Much like Toby’s relationship with his father in the book, there were many unanswered questions in the end. I did have a strong relationship with my father by the time he passed in 2016. But in 2018, my mother revealed some information I had never known about him. So, I started writing this book as a way to deal with my anger and grief.

Toby Kipton is an intriguing character. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?

Toby is a fictionalized version of my younger self. True to the book, there was a time when no one would tell me anything about my father’s life because “it was in the past” or because “I was too young.” Those early chapters in the book before the murder takes place are almost biographical. I never stalked anyone, but at one time, I did google the name of one of his long-time mistresses just to see if I could find out anything about her.

As for Toby’s obsession with the murder of his neighbor, any fan of a true crime book or television series can relate. I fictionalized the details of a real unsolved murder that happened in my hometown and just
wrote Toby into the middle of it.

I enjoyed the mystery at the heart of this story. Did you plan the mystery or did it develop organically while writing?

Around the same time my mother told me something I never knew about my dad, I became intrigued with the unsolved murder of a woman in my hometown. Some of the details of her murder involved a swingers club which I thought was so bizarre since I’d never known that was happening right there where I grew up. Most of the theories and details in the book, like the one about the body being stored in a fast food restaurant’s freezer, are based on real details related to the case. So, I adapted all of that into the book to create the mystery element while Toby is also seeking out the answers to his questions about his father’s past. The real murder remains unsolved to this day.

What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?

This was the first time I’d written a mystery and I really enjoyed it, so I’m working on another one. I hope to adapt my new book into a series. The lead character is trans and is an investigative journalist.

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