Professor’s ‘locked room’ mystery hits bookstores
The president of Fergus Falls State University is mysteriously murdered in his kitchen while preparing a dinner party for his faculty to mark the beginning of a new school year.
The local sheriff has his hands full trying to figure out who the murderer is.
In reality there is no such school as Fergus Falls State University, but it’s the perfect location for NDSU history professor, Gerald Anderson’s, latest mystery novel.
Anderson’s second novel, “Death Before Dinner,” recently hit bookstores everywhere and is what he calls a ‘locked room’ mystery.
“A locked room mystery is a type of genre where somebody is killed, and there is no possible way that the person could have been killed because the door has been locked,” Anderson said.
Anderson said both his first mystery novel, “The Uffda Trial,” and “Death Before Dinner” both were published by Midnight Ink, located in Minnesota.
“I know what people will probably think, ‘there’s no university in Fergus Falls,’” Anderson said. “I know that, but I think it’s such a pretty town, and the story is fiction.”
Anderson said in the plot the sheriff, Palmer Knutson, is the investigator and the victim, the president of the university, is hated by the entire faculty.
When asked how he comes up with the characters, Anderson said many are sort of a caricature of people he knew or grew up with.
Anderson attended high school at Hitterdal, Minn. and then went to Concordia and got his bachelor’s in history and political science.
After he finished his undergraduate degree, Anderson said he got his master’s at NDSU and Ph.D at the University of Iowa, both in history.
“I’ve been at NDSU for 22 years now, but I won’t be teaching here after this year,” Anderson said.
Anderson, whose wife has been an art teacher at Concordia for 17 years, said they want to move for a number of reasons.
“We want to move somewhere where my wife could have a larger studio, and I could work on my writing,” Anderson said. “We also want to travel and actually are going to Italy for about two and half weeks to help a friend harvest olives.”
Anderson has one daughter and two sons whom he wants to visit more often as well.
When asked how long it took for him to write his novels, Anderson said it usually takes about six months to a year, but only because he’s teaching full-time.
“With a mystery novel all the information is a linear series of events and involves so much planning,” Anderson said. “You need to think of the means behind the plot, the motive, opportunity and thought process of the characters, but you have to be fair to the reader and drop clues also.”
Anderson said sometimes he will sit down and spend more than two hours writing and end up throwing it away because it doesn’t sound right.
“Sometimes after I read what I just finished I’ll stop and think, this is all rubbish,” Anderson said. “Other times, I can be just jotting down some stuff and think this is brilliant.”
Traveling is something Anderson loves to do, and has been to Europe 13 times.
Courses Anderson has taught at NDSU include British History, English History, Western Civilization, 19th Century Europe, 20th Century Europe, The Cold War and Scandinavian-American History.
He said his biggest accomplishment was winning the Odney Teacher of the Year Award at NDSU two years go.
Anderson’s next mystery novel, “Murder Under the Loon,” is set to hit bookstores sometime next year.