About Susan McDuffie

A fan of historical fiction since childhood, Susan McDuffie spent such vast amounts of time reading stories set in the past that she wondered if she had mistakenly been born in the wrong century. As an adult her discovery that Clorox was not marketed prior to 1922 reconciled her to life in this era.

Susan grew up in Washington, Pennsylvania, and Binghamton, New York, where her father worked as a professor of Analytical Chemistry. She later lived in Rochester NY and attended graduate school in Boston before moving to Santa Fe, NM in 1982.

Susan’s first published works were two Regency short stories in Regency Press anthologies. Her childhood interest in Scotland, fueled by a great-uncle’s stories of the McDuffie clan’s ancestral lands on Colonsay, led eventually to her Scottish novels. Her clan’s traditional role as “Keeper of the Records” for the Lords of the Isles may in actuality have been a somewhat tedious position, but it all sounded incredibly mysterious and intriguing to Susan.

On her first visit to Scotland she hitchhiked her way through the Hebrides and that visit planted the initial seeds for her medieval mysteries. These grew into the award-winning Muirteach MacPhee Mysteries, set in medieval Scotland during the Celtic Lordship of the Isles. The mysteries include A MASS FOR THE DEAD, THE FAERIE HILLS (2011 New Mexico Book Awards “Best Historical Novel”), THE STUDY OF MURDER (New Mexico Book Awards Finalist 2014), and THE DEATH OF A FALCON (NM/AZ Book Awards winner 2018). THE SUICIDE SKULL, out in 2022, shares this medieval setting.

Susan’s life in New Mexico over the past forty years helped inspire the 2023 DEATH ON THE RIO CHIQUITO. Set in WWII New Mexico, on the fictitious Native American Pueblo of San Antonito, the mystery features the Anglo schoolteacher Emily Schwarz who stumbles over a dead body on her afternoon walk. Is it a local killing, or could wartime secrets be at risk in this sleepy backwater?

Susan belongs to the Historical Novel Society and regularly reviews historical fiction books for their “Historical Novels Review”. She also belongs to Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. She has participated in panels and presentations at numerous conferences including the Historical Novel Society Conference, Magna Cum Murder and Left Coast Crime.

Susan lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico and shares her life with a Native American artist from Cochiti Pueblo and several unruly and cosseted cats. She worked as an occupational therapist in the Santa Fe Public Schools before retiring in 2007 and has also worked as a potter. She enjoys taking dance classes in her spare time. She loves to hear from readers and can be contacted via Facebook, her website, or email.

Online Bibliography

Bibliography

Susan McDuffie
Published Works

McDuffie, Susan. “A Strange Occurrence Near G___”, short story in The Winter Holiday Sampler. Regency Press, 2000. ISBN: 1-929085-81-8

McDuffie, Susan. “An Unusual Correspondence”, short story in A Regency Sampler. Regency Press, 1999. ISBN: 1-929085-00-1

McDuffie, Susan. A Mass for the Dead. Five Star, an imprint of Thomson Gale, 2006. ISBN: 1-59414-489-3

McDuffie, Susan. A Mass for the Dead, A Muirteach MacPhee Mystery. Ebook published by Susan McDuffie, 2011. ISBN (Mobi): 978-0-9847-900-0-5, (Epub): 978-0-9847900-1-2

McDuffie, Susan. The Faerie Hills, A Muirteach MacPhee Mystery. Five Star Publishing, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning, 2011. ISBN: 978-1-59414-961-0

McDuffie, Susan. The Faerie Hills, A Muirteach MacPhee Mystery. Ebook published by Susan McDuffie, 2012. ISBN (Mobi): 978-0-9847900-3-6, (Epub): 978-0-9847900-2-9

McDuffie, Susan. The Study of Murder, A Muirteach MacPhee Mystery. Five Star Publishing, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning, 2013. ISBN: 978-1-4328-2720-5

McDuffie, Susan. “The Watergate, A Muirteach MacPhee Novelette”. Liafinn Press, 2016. ISBN (Mobi): 978-0-9847900-5-0, (Epub): 978-0-9847900-4-3

McDuffie, Susan. A Mass for the Dead. Paperback and ebook reissue published by Liafinn Press, 2016. ISBN Paperback: 978-0-9847900-6-7, Mobi: 978-0-9997682-5-9, Epub: 978-0-9997682-4-2

McDuffie, Susan. The Faerie Hills, A Muirteach MacPhee Mystery. Paperback reissue, including “The Watergate”, a Muirteach MacPhee novelette, Liafinn Press, 2016. ISBN Paperback: 978-0-9847900-7-4

McDuffie, Susan. The Study of Murder, A Muirteach MacPhee Mystery. Paperback reissue. Liafinn Press, 2018. ISBN Paperback: 978-0-9847900-8-1 Ebook (Mobi): 978-0-9997682-2-8, (Epub): 978-0-9997682-3-5

McDuffie, Susan. The Death of a Falcon, A Muirteach MacPhee Mystery. Liafinn Press, 2018. ISBN: Paperback: 978-0-9847900-9-8, Ebook (Mobi): 978-0-9997682-0-4, (Epub):978-0-9997682-1-1

McDuffie, Susan. The Suicide Skull. Liafinn Press, 2022. ISBN Paperback: 978-0-9997682-6-6, EPub: 978-0-9997682-7-3

McDuffie, Susan. Death on the Rio Chiquito, A New Mexico Homefront Mystery. Liafinn Press, 2023. ISBN Paperback: 978-0-9997682-8-0, EPub: 978-0-9997682-9-7

Frequently Asked Questions

How did you start writing? I had always been an avid reader, but never thought I would write. I owe it to the Santa Fe Public Schools, where I worked for twenty-five years as an occupational therapist. After a particularly bad day at work, I picked up a Harlequin romance novel from the paperback book exchange and innocently thought to myself “Why, I could do this”. At that point I started writing, little dreaming how difficult it can be. My first effort was a wild historical romance now reposing in a cardboard box in my garage. Why do you write historical mysteries? When I first began writing I wrote a historical romance, and then a couple of Regency set romantic novels. My first published fiction was a short story, “An Unusual Correspondence”, set in the Regency era, with mystery elements. At a certain point I came to the realization that the old adage “write what you love to read” holds true. I don’t read a lot of romance, but I love historical mysteries. The core concept of mysteries, restoring justice after a crime, appeals. And of course, I have always loved historical fiction; as a child I used to pick books to read depending on what era they are set in—often I still do. How did you pick the era and setting for your novels? I’ve always been a bit of a Scottish nut, and the Lordship of the Isles is an interesting era, a Celtic lordship tied to the more feudal Norman influenced monarchy of Scotland. It also has not been written about much. And there was the family connection. My great uncle started the MacDuffie Clan association, and I heard lots of stories about the early history of the MacDuffies, who were tied to the MacDonalds, the Lords of the Isles. I still treasure some of my great-uncle’s research books he picked up on his travels many years ago. How did Muirteach MacPhee, your sleuth, evolve? Muirteach is the bastard son of the prior of Oronsay. I first visited Colonsay and the Oronsay Priory ruins many years ago. The beautifully carved grave slabs there impressed me, dating from the period of the Lordship of the Isles. Many were grave slabs of the Priors of Oronsay, who were often succeeded by their sons. This realization that the priors of that era were not terribly celibate became one of the sparks that grew into Muirteach, my sleuth, the bastard son of the prior of Oronsay. A little booklet about Colonsay, written by Sheila Duffy, provided a list of names of the priors of Oronsay, including Muirteach’s fictional father, Crispinus, and his uncle Gillespic, the chief of the MacDuffie clan at the time. What do you enjoy most about writing? I love creating a world and trying to accurately put myself into the mindsets of people who lived so many years ago. For example, what were their ideas of the stars? We look at the sky and see planets, stars, galaxies, sputniks, planes, and satellites. Medieval people however might have viewed the stars as lights shining through the celestial sphere from the heavenly realms beyond that sphere. How do you get ideas for your books? For each book I tend to have a theme, some aspect of history that inspires my plot. A MASS FOR THE DEAD focused on my fictional story of how the MacDuffies or MacPhies may have become the record keepers of the Lords of the Isles. THE FAERIE HILLS was inspired by stories of fairy changelings and the Bridget Cleary murder case in 1890s Ireland. THE STUDY OF MURDER revolves around a mysterious manuscript similar to the Voynich manuscript. DEATH OF A FALCON, currently in progress, began with research on the Knights Templar and Henry Sinclair’s possible voyage to America in the 1390s. My research led me far afield, to the Norse in Greenland and America, although the book takes place in Edinburgh. What about the New Mexico mysteries? My longtime partner of thirty years grew up and still lives on the Cochiti Pueblo. He’s the kind of guy who can tell you who he sat next to for lunch in junior high school and what they ate, and he tells wonderful stories. He was raised by his grandparents at Cochiti. I extrapolated a bit from the 1950s to the wartime 1940s and thought it best to set my mystery on a fictitious pueblo, San Antonito. The story is told from the viewpoint of an Anglo schoolteacher, Emily Schwarz, and my twenty-five years working in the public schools of Santa Fe definitely play into her character.