Interview with
Erica Ruth Neubauer •

The Unofficial Book Reviewer was delighted to score an exclusive interview with Erica Ruth Neubauer, author of the Jane Wunderly mysteries, set in exotic locales around the globe. Click here to read a review of Murder at the Mena House, her Agatha Award–winning first book. And kudos to Sarah Gibb for the gorgeous cover illustrations!

Unofficial Book Reviewer: Tell us about the Mena House. You make it sound so enticing that I was ready to pack a bag and book myself in.
Erica Ruth Neubauer: I was fortunate enough to stay at the Mena House during my trip to Egypt. It’s a gorgeous hotel and has such an interesting history. And it really is right next to the Pyramids, although the city of Giza now surrounds both. At the time the book takes place, the hotel and the Pyramids were pretty remote from everything.

UBR: How did you choose Egypt as a setting for your first mystery?
ERN: My father, who was a policeman and a detective, raised me on old black-and-white movies and Masterpiece Mystery. Somewhere along the way I picked up very romantic ideas about Egypt in the 1920s. In my mind I can clearly see a group of elegantly dressed people, the Pyramids in the distance, with slow-moving fans overhead . . . and a body in the corner. It seemed the perfect place to set my first book.

UBR: Do you have any particular process for coming up with character names? Jane Wunderly made me think of Miss Wonderly, the alias Bridget O’Shaughnessy adopts in The Maltese Falcon.
ERN: That’s funny, because that’s exactly where I got her name. It’s the last movie that my father and I saw together before he passed. Other names come from a variety of places—sometimes it’s friends of mine or tombstones I’ve seen in graveyards. I found the name Redvers by combing through lists of popular baby names from the year he would have been born. I had to go pretty far down the list for that one.

UBR: Is there someone like Aunt Millie in your family?
ERN: Aunt Millie is loosely based on my grandmother, who was quite a character. She liked to stir the pot, stir up trouble.

UBR: Are you able to draw on your background in law enforcement for your books?
ERN: Not as much as you might think. Police work and investigations are vastly different now than they were in the 1920s. The one thing that has stayed the same is the ability to talk to a lot of different kinds of people, which is what Jane does.

More books by Erica Ruth Neubauer: