David Rohlfing spent his career in the world of the retail automotive aftermarket business and has lived in every continent of the world but one. He has sat on boards of companies and organizations, been an advisor to companies and executives, and currently works as a consultant. He recently turned his hand to crime fiction with his debut title, Deliberate Duplicity, just published by River Grove Books.

Deliberate Duplicity is the first in a planned series featuring Illinois Detective Sasha Frank, who is plunged into a serial killer case after dead bodies are found one at a time along the Constitution Trail, where abandoned railroad tracks once ran through the "Twin Cities" of Bloomington-Normal. The bodies point to a meticulous, cold-hearted killer who poses their victims on the ground, making sure to leave the eyes wide open—silent witnesses to their own murder. As Sasha and his team investigate these gruesome killings, they end up with more questions than answers: What’s the killer’s motive? And how are the victims connected? As the once cool-headed Sasha unravels the tangled web of clues surrounding the murders, the pressure beings to chip away at his composed exterior. Will he be able to solve the mystery before time runs out and bring justice to all who were affected?

David Rohlfing stops by In Reference to Murder to discuss writing the book:

For the past ten years, I've written a blog that focuses on the business world, where I spent my career traveling to six continents and countless countries. A few years ago, while talking with a friend, he suggested I write a book about my business philosophy. I enjoy writing, so I thought I'd give it a try. However, since I'm now retired, I couldn’t get interested in writing about business and quickly found myself pivoting to thinking about writing a murder mystery novel instead.

I've been an avid reader of all types of books for my entire life, especially murder mystery novels. While reading a mystery, I always enjoy parsing through clues, trying to figure out which character is the antagonist. It would be a new endeavor for me to work backwards, building the type of story that would keep readers guessing.

First, I developed a lead character, Sasha Frank, a senior detective in Bloomington, Illinois. Many of the mystery novels I’ve read have been set in big cities, and I thought it would be interesting to place my detective in a more tight-knit community. As I worked on developing the plot for Deliberate Duplicity, I began introducing more characters to the storyline that was forming in my mind. It began as something simple: people start showing up dead, and Sasha Frank is to lead the investigation. Then I worked out the details: at first, two murder victims are found naked in a Bloomington park, marking the beginning of the Consititution Trail Murders.

The story's sequencing began to evolve, and I added and deleted entire chapters as I worked toward a final draft. With Deliberate Duplicity being my first book, I quickly learned that less is more during the writing and subsequent editing process. I found at first I provided too many details that didn't move the story along. In order to maintain the suspense and keep the reader searching for clues along with Sasha, large sections needed to be cut from the book—a good lesson for any aspiring writer.

Many of the fictitious characters in the book are actually composites of people I know. Their characteristics show up in how they interact with others, the things they say, or how they speak. To the surprise of my wife, family, and friends who've read Deliberate Duplicity, I also wrote characters with very dark minds responsible for grisly killings. That's not to suggest that these elements come from lived experience! I think that my reading, along with years of watching television shows, documentaries, and movies providing investigative details of murders, crime scene investigations, and the legal process of pursuing perpetrators, were helpful to me when creating these more intense elements.

I enjoyed writing the first book in the Detective Sasha Frank Murder Mystery Series, and I'm especially looking forward to it’s publication on January 5, 2021. I hope that readers will be compelled to follow Sasha and help him work the clues as he leads the investigation to find who is behind the Constitution Trail Murders. There are subtle hints that provide readers of Deliberate Duplicity that opportunity to discover who's responsible.

You can learn more about author David Rohlfing and the book via his website and also follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Deliberate Duplicity is now available via all major booksellers.