Interview with Mystery Author Eleanor Sullivan

MysteryAuthors.com is proud to have bestselling mystery author Eleanor Sullivan with us for an interview today. Thank you for joining us.

M.A.: Tell us a little about your featured mystery, ASSUMED DEAD.

E.S.: After a John Doe arrives unconscious to the intensive care unit of St. Teresa’s Hospital, head nurse Monika Everhardt learns he might be a man thought killed in NYC on 9/11. At the same time a recently remarried widow is in a coma following a vicious beating, and her husband is suspected of attempting to murder her for her money. As complications develop and both patients hover near death, Monika struggles to uncover the truth before her patients die.

M.A.: Can you share with us (without giving anything away, of course!) a personal favorite moment or line in your book?

E.S.: I love it when Monika figures it out, her “ah ha” moment. I feel just like it’s happening to me!

M.A.: Why mysteries? What makes them so compelling for you to write?

E.S.: I was a scientist, used to putting together research projects, and every piece had to fit, be accounted for to be sure that no extraneous variables could contaminate the results. Mysteries are the same. I love teasing out all the pieces, making sure they all fit together in the end. And I think everyone likes to see that justice prevails in mysteries, even if it doesn’t in real life.

M.A.: What about other work? Do you write in any genres other than mystery?

E.S.: I write textbooks for Prentice Hall, but mysteries are my love.

M.A.: What was your funniest writing-related moment?

E.S.: Planning to set several scenes in a corner bar in South St. Louis (not the most savory of neighborhoods), I asked my son-in-law to accompany me. Then my grandson wanted to go along. So there sat a middle-age woman, a much younger man, and a child (two of us had soft drinks), watching people pass money to the bartender for their illegal bets when a drunk fell off a barstool. What had I gotten myself in for, I wondered.

M.A.: So, what's your current writing project? Is it a mystery, too?

E.S.: Yes, but it’s a historical mystery, the first of a new series set in a strict, religious society in 1830s rural Ohio. In Cover Her Body, a 16-year old girl is murdered because she’s pregnant but the only person who suspects it wasn’t an accident is Adelaide, a young midwife, who puts her own life in danger when she tries to find the killer.

M.A.: Other than MysteryAuthors.com, do you have any websites where readers can find out more about you and your work?

E.S.: Be sure to check out my website: www.EleanorSullivan.com

Thanks again for agreeing to take a Minute for Mystery by joining us here today.