Catacomb, the second in my Flora Garibaldi Italian series, comes out April 2. In this sequel to Burnt Siena, Flora and her policeman boyfriend join a perilous search for Nazi-looted art under the city of Rome (pre-order the Kindle edition here).
I could hold my breath until next week, but instead I'm interviewing another archaeologist who, like me, enjoys digging (heh, heh) his professional life for good stories. Meet Steven Kuehn, a new Five Star author. Weekdays, Steve works as a faunal analyst at the Illinois State Archaeological Survey. On nights and weekends, he plots murder...
I could hold my breath until next week, but instead I'm interviewing another archaeologist who, like me, enjoys digging (heh, heh) his professional life for good stories. Meet Steven Kuehn, a new Five Star author. Weekdays, Steve works as a faunal analyst at the Illinois State Archaeological Survey. On nights and weekends, he plots murder...
Here's the review I wrote recently about his first mystery novel:
"Steven Kuehn’s Sunken Dreams is a well-written and engrossing 'whodunnit.' Archaeologist Jake Caine corrals a group of students to work on a Wisconsin dig where the previous excavation leader, Jacklyn Wardell, died years ago in mysterious circumstances. Normal dig operations are interrupted by break-ins, attempted theft, cranky senior archaeologists, nosy tourists, and petty rivalry among the students. Tension rises as Jake discovers that Jacklyn’s friends and rivals are still around, and one of them will do anything to derail Jake’s investigation of her death.
Kuehn, a professional archaeologist with many years of field and lab experience, knows all about academic jealousies and the pressure-cooker atmosphere of a dig in crowded and uncomfortable conditions. Kuehn’s deft handling of plot and character bring the mystery to a satisfying conclusion that models good story-telling while bringing day-to-day archaeological fieldwork vividly to life."
Q: What is the title
and genre of your novel? Why did you select them?
A: My novel is Sunken
Dreams, and it is the first in the Jake Caine Archaeology Mystery series. It
is a traditional mystery with an amateur sleuth, combining archaeology and a
cold case that quickly heats up. Like a cozy, this novel avoids excess violence
and adult situations, and instead focuses on the characters and the storyline.
The beginning writer is often told to write what they know.
I have a great deal of experience in archaeology, and the work itself often
involves dealing with many interesting people, places, and things. While
writing Sunken Dreams, I was able to
draw on these experiences to create many of the scenes for the novel.
A :Sunken Dreams had
its inspiration, in part, in a real life event. While doing an archaeological
survey in eastern Wisconsin many years ago, I read about an archaeology
professor who drowned in a boating accident, at a fairly young age. I thought
about it a bit, and started to imagine what might have happened if it wasn’t
really an accident. I realized it would make an interesting premise for a
novel, and started building on it from there.
Doing archaeological fieldwork involves a lot of time on the
road, and staying in hotels for months and months can get really boring. In the
evenings, after taking care of my daily paperwork and other tasks, I started
writing down snippets of the story. At first I focused on different scenes that
I wanted to include, and then I created a formal outline that brought the whole
story together. Over the years, I worked on the novel during my free time,
writing and rewriting until the manuscript was finished to my satisfaction.
Q: Could you tell us
a little bit about the hero of your novel?
A: Jake Caine is an archaeology professor and amateur sleuth at
Wisconsin State University. He is a dedicated archaeologist with a passion for
his work, and enjoys teaching but hates the politics. Underneath it all is an
inherent curiosity, a real drive to understand the prehistoric past. This
curiosity manifests itself when he learns that Jacklyn Wardell, another
archaeologist, died years earlier under mysterious circumstances at the same
site his field school is currently excavating. As Jake learns more about
Wardell and her accident, some unusual events occur that make him wonder what
really happened. Soon he has to know the truth.
Q: Can you tell us
about some of your other published novels or work?
A: I’ve spend most of the last 25 years writing up
archaeological reports and articles, but outside of the professional community
they probably wouldn’t count much as interesting or fun reads! I have written
one Jake Caine short story, Talked to
Death, which appeared online in Mysterical-E
in 2012. The story is set at an archaeology conference, and the banquet speaker
drops dead in the middle of his rather lengthy speech. Needless to say, it
wasn’t from natural causes and Jake ends up in the middle of the investigation.
And yes, I did think of the idea during an exceptionally dull conference
presentation.
Q: What are you
working on now?
A: I am currently working on my second novel in the Jake Caine
series, tentatively entitled A Killing
Caught in Time. It centers on some unexpected finds at a bison kill site in
northwestern Wisconsin, when events from the distant past and near past
intertwine. A fresh body turns up near the dig and one of the archaeologists is
accused of murder, so it falls to Jake to uncover the truth once again.
I have several other Jake Caine novels in the works. After
25 years in archaeology, I have a lot of material to draw upon for ideas and
inspiration. I’ve also been working on a historical fiction mystery set in 17th
century New France (Canada). Genealogy is one of my passions, and I enjoy doing
a lot of background reading to supplement my understanding of the places and times
inhabited by my ancestors. Some of my relatives first put down roots in Canada
in the 1650s, and I always thought it was the perfect setting for a novel.
Q: What made you
start writing?
A: I’ve loved to read since I was a child, and I’ve always been
interested in writing. One of my early favorites was the Happy Hollisters
series by Jerry West (Andrew Swenson), about five siblings (Pete, Pam, Ricky,
Holly, and Sue) who solved mysteries. I guess the mystery bug got to me quite
early! I wrote some short stories and one play in high school, and as an escape
during college I wrote some epic fantasy and mystery stories.
Writing mystery fiction has many parallels with writing
archaeological reports. In mystery fiction, it’s up to the protagonist to solve
a crime based on clues he or she uncovers, avoid the pitfalls of red herrings,
and overcome any antagonistic threats to life and limb. Similarly,
archaeologists take limited amounts of data (clues, in the form of artifacts,
features, and sites) to interpret what life was like thousands of years in the
past, while dealing with biases and problems (e.g., sampling issues, missing
information, gaps in the archaeological record) that can influence our
interpretations. Unlike the movies, there isn’t a great deal of danger and
mayhem in most archaeological research, but I have been chased by an angry
bull, stung by various insects, threatened on occasion, and once slid down a
rather steep rock outcrop (fortunately, my fall was interrupted when my head
struck a large tree).
A: Writing is a tricky business, and no particular approach
works for everyone. There are many wonderful books on writing available, and
they do serve as good resources. It also helps to have a support network,
preferably a fellow writer or writer’s group to whom you can present ideas and
receive constructive feedback. I also think it is important to read, read,
read, and not just in your genre. Study and compare how other authors present
their ideas, how they manipulate the written word to make you think. Above all,
you have to write every day, no matter how busy you are or how difficult it
might be to get your thoughts on paper. Even on a bad day, if I write one good
sentence, it is better than not having written anything at all.
Q: Where and when
will readers be able to obtain your novel?
A: Sunken Dreams
will be published on May 18, 2016, and available through any independent
bookstore, as well as Amazon.com (available for pre-order now) and BarnesandNoble.com.
Thanks to Jacqueline Seewald for the interview template. Questions and comments for Steve are welcome below!
