Elizabeth Buhmann

DEATH AT FALCONFIELDS is now live. It’s the first volume in a series, Murder on the Gulf Coast, in which ex-homicide detective Gil Tillier investigates crimes in small towns from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle. I’ve written the first three books–I’ll be releasing the next two in 2026.

I’ve followed a fairly strict design in writing this series. In one sense, this is limiting, but it’s also challenging and fun—I like a challenge. So, for example, after the prologue (in which the crime comes to light), every chapter is strictly from the detective’s point of view.

This is a key feature of this particular sub-genre, traditional detective fiction. It’s how we pit the reader’s brain against the detective’s: you have the exact same information. The detective will figure out who committed the crime (and how and why). Can you?

I like a true mystery. A puzzle. I don’t really want a book to scare me or make me anxious. I want to be intrigued and use my mind to solve a problem, discover a truth. I love puzzles in general. (I am addicted to both jigsaw puzzles and sudoku. I studied and taught logic.)

The only time I withhold information in this series is when the detective has a brainstorm and figures something out based on what he already knows. You have the same clues. Can you follow his line of thought?

Here’s the ah-ha moment from Death at Falconfields:

“In a calmer frame of mind [Tillier] returned to the facts, arranging them in his mind. An untidy detail gave him pause. The ghost of a scenario teased him, half-formed in the back of his mind. He felt himself on the brink, but the big question remained. He gave voice to it.

“What went down in the middle of the old Falconfields Plantation five and a half years ago, that [the victim] ended up with a bullet in his heart and his car ten miles away?”

. . .

“He stood in front of the open window and listened to the treetops rustling in the breeze. An owl hooted. One more time he ran through the facts, until he stumbled over a throwaway mention by Morehouse. The elusive scenario snapped into focus.

“Tillier said out loud, “You lied.””