Where is Henderson?

When Jerilyn Dufresne began toying with the idea for a new murder mystery she had no idea it would take place in Henderson. She didn’t even know “whodunnit.”

“I had an idea of what if a body fell off a train in Quincy, Illinois, my hometown,” she said.  Most of her books take place in Quincy, but this was her fifth book, and she wanted to avoid the appearance of killing off the population there. So, she needed the murder to take place elsewhere.

“My friend, (motivational speaker and podcaster) Lou Ann Clark, was giving a workshop a few years ago (in Henderson) and I wanted to go to it.” She reasoned if she used Henderson as the locale, “I can deduct this from my income taxes.” That’s how the book came to be named “Where Is Henderson?”

Once she got here, though, her mercenary motive seemed serendipitous. Henderson is on a major railroad line, she noted. “We’re both river towns, and we both have a lot of historical buildings. I was just charmed by the town, and it worked out perfectly for me.”

The workshop that brought her here was held in Worsham Hall, which makes an appearance in the book, although the fictional version is larger. And one of the participants at the workshop was Nibby Priest, who Dufresne used as the basis for one of her major characters.

“She contacted me first and asked me if it was OK,” Priest said. “I said I would be honored – just make him be a nice guy, and she did.

“If you know just a little bit about me, you can see (Priest in the fictional character), but if you know me very much you know, I’m not tall. He’s a tall gentleman, and he runs a bed and breakfast.”

Dufresne has spent most of her working life as a psychotherapist, although a short stint as a comedian appears to help in her often-humorous writing style, which she calls “cozy mysteries.”

“With a cozy mystery, the murder sort of happens off stage. Characters don’t cuss, and there’s not a lot of violence. I often tell people I write family friendly books. You don’t have to worry if your child picks it up.”

Dufresne is 69 although her first novel wasn’t published until she was 65.  So far, she’s sold about 75,000 copies. She’s currently working on her seventh book. (She also has two other part-time jobs: teacher at Quincy University and counselor.)

The main character in the series is a psychotherapist named Samantha Darling, who wants to be a law enforcement officer and has a psychic connection with her dog, Clancy, “or at least the owner thinks it does.” The yellow lab-chow mix is a big favorite of readers. “If I ever kill off the dog I’m in big trouble.”

She sort of writes by the seat of her pants. She usually takes her laptop to the local coffee shop and listens to people talk while she’s writing, which sometimes inspires her.

“I don’t outline; I have no idea what’s going to happen” when she begins writing a book. “When I wrote ‘Where is Henderson?’ I was almost at the end of the book before I knew who did it, and it was because the characters told me.”

She also comes up with a title at the beginning of the process. “And then I just noodle around with thoughts.”

Dufresne returned to Henderson in November to do a book signing at Planters Coffee House. “People were so kind to me. I just fell in love with the town all over again.”

Where Is Henderson? (Sam Darling Mystery Book 5) is available for purchase at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.