with Mignon Ballard
We are delighted to welcome mystery author Mignon Ballard to Omnimystery News today.
Mignon's new mystery is Miss Dimple Suspects (Minotaur Books, January 2013 hardcover and ebook formats), the third in this historical series featuring the Georgia grade school teacher.
We recently had a chance to talk to the author about her books.
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Omnimystery News: You've written both stand-alone and series mysteries, with your most recent books being part of a series. What about series characters appeals to you?
Photo provided courtesy of
Mignon Ballard
Mignon Ballard: I enjoy inviting my readers into a setting and hope that once there, they will make themselves at home by becoming acquainted with the people and surroundings. Miss Dimple has evolved since I first introduced her, as have many of her friends and I have come to know them better along with my readers. Dimple Kilpatrick was still very young when her mother died and she had to assume the responsibility of helping to raise her little brother on the family farm. The more I learn about her, the more I respect and admire her strength and courage, her wit and wisdom as she continues to grow and change.
OMN: The third book in the "Miss Dimple" series has just been published. Tell us something about the book that isn't in the publisher's synopsis.
MB: I think the close relationship between friends and the community they live in take center stage almost as much as the mystery in the Miss Dimple books, as it did in the Augusta Goodnight series before them. With a few exceptions my characters care deeply about each other as I hope my readers will come to care about them. It sometimes shocks even me, as the author, to find that someone I have come to know and trust would take another's life. Surely it couldn't be so-and-so! I never believed it possible! (But of course it is because a mystery leads us off the beaten path.)
OMN: Do you have a personal connection with the setting and time frame — Georgia and World War II, respectively — for this series?
MB: I'm not so much in my books as are the time and place I was raised and the people who populated my world. I have borrowed from that a bit — not as much for my characters, but how they react to one another, especially in dialogue, the expressions they use, and especially in the use of humor.
OMN: Tell us how you go about developing a storyline for a book.
MB: I usually write a detailed synopsis but often wander from it. I begin with a loose idea and expand as the plot develops. Beginning a mystery is a little like starting off on a winding path. It takes you uphill and down, through shadow and sunlight, sometimes coming alarmingly close to danger. If I knew exactly what was going to happen around every turn, it would take the excitement from it.
OMN: Is Miss Dimple's hometown a real place in Georgia?
MB: No. The series is set in fictional Elderberry, Georgia, during the war years of the 1940s. I grew up in a small town in North Georgia during that time, but because some of my characters work several days a week at a munitions plant that was actually in Milledgeville, Georgia, I "picked up" the town and placed it a little south of Atlanta. The grammar school, the library, even the boarding house where some of the teacher live are much like I remember them from those times. The clanging of the school bell; the way a sidewalk juts out in a certain place, the slant of a shadow across the floor; the smell of cornbread baked in a cast iron skillet hot from the oven are things that are ingrained in my memory, and I treasure every one.
OMN: What are your hobbies or interests outside of writing crime fiction? Do any of these activities find their way into your books?
MB: You can look at me and tell I like to eat, and so do my characters. I especially enjoy baking, and when the people at Phoebe Chadwick's boarding house sit down for a meal I want to know what they're eating. Sometimes I even tell how it's prepared. My characters enjoy fried chicken, turnip greens with chow-chow, and fresh corn and tomatoes from their Victory gardens. And even though sugar is rationed in wartime, they usually have enough on hand for gingerbread or pecan pie on special occasions.
I've also been active (mostly behind the scenes) in our community theatre and once in a while, such as in "Miss Dimple Rallies to the Cause", an amateur production will find its way into the plot.
Also walking has always brought me great pleasure, and although I don't follow Miss Dimple's example of walking at the crack of dawn, I do enjoy hiking, especially on a wooded trail, and it's even more fun to walk with friends, although my husband claims our mouths move twice as fast as our feet!
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A native of Calhoun, Georgia, Mignon Ballard received her degree in journalism from the University of Georgia. She lives with her husband, Gene, in Fort Mill, South Carolina, where she enjoys spending time with friends and family, as well as walking, baking, and bridge, and is active in her church and community theater. She and her husband have two grown daughters and five grandchildren. Mignon taught for several years as an approved artist with the Artist-in-the-Schools Project in the state and when time permits, enjoys visiting classrooms and speaking to interested groups in the area.
To learn more about the author and her books, visit her website at MignonBallard.com.
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Miss Dimple Suspects
Mignon Ballard
A Miss Dimple Mystery (3rd in series)
Publisher: Minotaur Books
With the country in the midst of World War II, you can be sure the small town of Elderberry, Georgia, will pull together to find a missing child. And you can be equally certain that first-grade teacher, Miss Dimple Kilpatrick, will be in the search party — especially since Peggy Ashcroft is one of her students. Miss Dimple carves out a search path all her own and once again, the sharp-as-a-tack teacher is right on point. But she finds Peggy too sick to walk and it's too dark for Miss Dimple to find her way back.
Luckily, she comes upon the home of an elderly artist, Mae Martha, and her young companion, Suzy, who helps ensure that Peggy returns home safe and sound. A few days later, however, Miss Dimple receives a frantic call from Suzy: Mae Martha has been murdered and Suzy is seen as the most likely suspect, because her family is Japanese. Miss Dimple and her fellow teachers Annie and Charlie don't buy it; and set out to prove Suzy's innocence, only to discover danger where they least expect it.
