A Basket Case (Maddie Sparks Mystery Series) by Lesley A Diehl
About A Basket Case
A Basket Case (Maddie Sparks Mystery Series)
Cozy Mystery 2nd in Series
Setting - Upstate New York
Publisher : Camel Press
(November 12, 2024)
Paperback :
250 pages
ISBN-10 : 1684922208
ISBN-13 : 978-1684922208
Digital ASIN : B0D4MWFWSP
Maddie Sparks believes she has found the perfect balance in her life-Zack, the man she loves, a book she loves writing and volunteer work at a local museum with a granddaughter she adores. An old flame from Zack's past arrives and drives a wedge into Maddie and Zack's romance, her writing stalls and someone murders the museum's director just as the museum is about to return a collection of Native American artifacts to the Onondaga and Oneida nations. Standing over the dead body of the museum director is an Indigenous man from neither group who insists one of the baskets in the collection belongs to his family. The authorities believe he is the killer, but Maddie does not. With her love life on hold, Maddie and her granddaughter set out to identify the killer, but their search reveals thefts at the museum and a two-hundred-year-old family secret that is the key to the motivation behind the killing. When Maddie uncovers the history behind the feud over the basket, she knows the identity of the killer, making Maddie his next target.
About Lesley A. Diehl
Cows, Lesley learned growing up on a farm, have a twisted sense of humor. They chased her when she herded them in for milking, and one ate the lovely red mitten her grandmother knitted for her. Determining that agriculture wasn’t a good career choice, instead, she uses her country roots and her training as a psychologist to concoct stories designed to make people laugh in the face of murder. Unusual protagonists appear in many of Lesley’s works including Desdemona the crime-fighting potbellied pig, a hobo turned county sheriff and Lesley’s zany back-home-on-the-farm relatives (The Killer Wore Cranberry, all six anthologies). She is the author of several cozy mystery series (The Eve Appel Mysteries, Laura Murphy Mysteries, The Big Lake Murder Mysteries, and her newest, Maddie Sparks Mysteries, featuring a senior sleuth and her rescue cat). Her cozy mysteries have won several Readers’ Favorite Awards and a short story Sleuthfest Award. Find out more at www.lesleyadiehl.com.
Interview
Where are you from?
I was raised on a farm in the Midwest, moved around the country for my degrees, taught college in New York State and finally retired in a small village in Upstate New York. My husband, rescue cat, Bandi, and I live in a small cottage on a trout stream at the edge of our village.
Tell us your latest news.
I am working on the final edits for the third book in the Maddie Sparks Mysteries which should be released by Camel Press later in 2025. I have begun writing the fourth book in the series.
When and why did you begin writing?
My husband and I moved to New Mexico after we retired. He always wanted to author a novel and he began writing it when we settled in Las Cruces. I felt at loose ends but had always loved reading mysteries from the time I was a kid when I read the Nancy Drew books, the Dana Girls and Cherry Ames. Once in high school, I graduated to Agatha Christie. I dabbled in poetry and short stories in high school and college, but my work as a psychologist meant I wrote scientific papers and left fiction behind. However, with hubby off in his office writing, I decided I might try my hand at a mystery. I had no idea how to put a mystery together, so I had to learn the craft. We spent time at writing conferences and workshops, and along with another writer, I helped put together a critique group. Now I have published numerous mystery series and short stories in anthologies.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
Someone at a conference told me that I needed to own the tile “writer” even if I had not yet published a book. That was over 25 years ago.
What inspired you to write your first book?
The first book I wrote was not the first one I got published and I think it was a kind of therapy after having spent my career in teaching and administration in higher education which can be as competitive and cutthroat a place as private enterprise. I figured writing fiction, especially a murder mystery, was an opportunity to take aim at people I hadn’t particularly liked. I set that work aside for several years and began work on another mystery which featured a woman who owned a craft brewery. I knew nothing about making beer, so I had to research the subject which I did by visiting breweries and talking with expert master brewers. By that time, I had learned how to construct a mystery, and I had fun doing the research for the book. It was my first book published by a small publisher and called A Deadly Draught. In contrast to the books I write today (cozy mysteries), it was more of a traditional mystery.
Do you have a specific writing style?
Because I write cozies, there is not blood, violence, bad language or sex on the page. And the bad guys always pay the price. I also include humor in my stories, so the read is fun.
How did you come up with the title?
The story is about a Native American basket which is to be returned to the group from which it was taken years ago. Thus the name A Basket Case. The museum holding it had planned to return it when the museum director is murdered. The person arrested for the murder is the head of the nation claiming it, but my protagonist, Maddie Sparks, a woman of a certain age with a limitless curiosity, does not believe the man arrested is the killer. Maddie’s snooping discovers a two-hundred-year-old murder lies at the heart of the murder.
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
In the book, the injustice, lies and racism Maddie uncovers are not just in the past. They continue to this day and result in murder and the arrest of a man, who difficult to like, is nonetheless, innocent. Bias against indigenous people can sometimes blind us to the truth.
What would you like my readers to know?
Like all my books, this one involved research into The Native American Graves Protection and Reparation Act (NAGPPA) passed in 1990 and designed to return objects of spiritual, religious and cultural important to the nations or tribes and requires compliance from all entities receiving federal funds. It is shocking how many museums, universities and other public entities still hold these objects. Some do not even know they have the artifacts in their basements gathering dust. Others have resisted returning the objects. Many tribes and nations have worked for decades to get the objects back.
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