Sometimes the best way to know a person is by asking questions, where you can learn more about what makes them tick. Let’s see what Faye has to say.

What is your name?
– – Faye Longchamp

How old are you?
– – Umm. . .forty-ish? My husband is nine years younger than me, so this isn’t my favorite question. . .

What is your profession?
– – I’m an archaeologist.

Do you have a significant other?
– – Yes, I’m married to my best friend, who is the hottest man I know.

What is his name?
– – His full name is Joe Wolf Mantooth

What is his profession?
– – We own a cultural resource management firm, which is a long way of saying that we do archaeology on a contract basis for individuals, businesses, and governmental agencies.

Any children?
– – Yes, we have a three-year-old son named Michael and we made our family perfect by adopting a teenaged girl named Amande. She’ll be leaving for college soon and it will break my heart. I will also miss having an in-house babysitter who is also turning into a pretty fine archaeologist.

Do you have any sibling(s)?
– – No. My father left for Vietnam when I was just a baby and he never came home. My parents didn’t have enough years together to have more than one kid. It was always just me and my mother and my grandmother.

Cats, dogs or other pets?
– – No, but I live on an island where there are all kinds of animals, birds, and fish.

What town do you live in?
– – I live on an island in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of the Florida Panhandle, near the towns of Panacea and Sopchoppy.

Do you rent or own?
– – I inherited a big old house and the island it sits on from my mother, who was a descendant of the slaves that built it. As I eventually learned, she was also a descendant of the masters who lived in it. My family history is really complicated and I’m not sure I’ll ever completely come to terms with it.

House or building complex?
– – It’s a house, but I guess you could call it a building complex if you counted the barn and the smokehouse and all the other outbuildings people needed in the old days.

What is your favorite spot in your house?
– – There’s a cupola on the top floor. It’s just a room with glass on all sides that sits on top of the roof like a lookout’s perch, but I love to sit there and watch the Gulf of Mexico move under the sky. It’s not such a good place to be during a hurricane, though. . .

Who is your best friend?
– – Joe, absolutely. But I’m also blessed with the best woman friend in the world. Her name is Dr. Magda Stockard McKenzie and she is fearsome, but she taught me everything I know about archaeology and more than a little bit about life.

Amateur sleuth or professional?
– – Both. I’m not a police officer or a private investigator, but I am often hired by investigators as a consultant when they have cases that involve forensic archaeology.

Whom do you work with when sleuthing?
– – Joe. Always Joe. And, of course, I work with the police when they’ve hired me for a consulting job.

Favorite meal?
– – Joe makes this creamy seafood, corn, and squash bisque. He catches the crabs and shrimp, and he grows the corn, onions, peppers, and summer squash. You really have to try it. Joe does most of the cooking. I’m actually a pretty good cook, when I take the time, but Joe is an artist.

Favorite dessert?
– – Just a Hershey bar, simple and unadorned. And a Coke.

Favorite hobby?
– – I love to read. I’d rather be in my cupola with a good book than socializing in a crowd any day of the week.

Favorite vacation spot?
– – I’ve never had the time or money to do much traveling, but I have family in New Orleans and it’s an easy drive from north Florida. It’s got history, great food, and amazing music. I love it.

Favorite color?
– – Green. It’s the color of the Gulf of Mexico, sometimes, and the trees and Joe’s eyes.

Favorite author?
– – Zora Neale Hurston. You’ve got to love somebody who can write a line like “Grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear.”

Favorite sports team?
– – Um. . .I’m not sure I know the names of any. . .um. . .oh yeah! The New Orleans Saints!

Movies or Broadway?
– – I’ve never had the chance to get to Broadway. I will, someday, but I do love the movies.

Are you a morning or a night person?
– – Both. Seriously. I get up early because I have so much work to do, and I work hard because I love my work so much. But I stay up late, because when else am I going to read books and think about things. My insomnia’s going to catch up with me someday but not yet. Not yet.

In a few sentences, what is a typical day in your life like?
– – When I’m working away from home, I get up and get moving, so I can finish the job and get home to my family. When I’m working on my island, I still get up early and get moving, but I confess to taking little breaks to walk by the water or even take a swim with the kids. When I’m not working, it’s all swimming and fishing and goofing off, all the time.

You can read about Faye in Undercurrents, the eleventh book in the “Faye Longchamp” mystery series. The first book in the series is Artifacts.

In Undercurrents, the eleventh Faye Longchamp Mystery, Faye has traveled to Memphis, a city steeped in music, poverty, history, and the smoky tang of barbecue. She’s there working alone to do an assessment of a site, welcome work for her small archaeological consulting firm.

When Faye spies a child too young to be wandering along a creek alone, she follows the girl. A day later she uncovers a dying woman, buried alive near a spot where Kali might well be hiding. Nobody would blame Faye for running hard, but she can’t make herself leave Kali, the woman’s now orphaned daughter, who might be in danger. She’s not welcomed by the people in Kali’s struggling community, nor by the police working the crime. Yet she stays, for Kali, and for the bereaved who need her to communicate their fears to a police department that they trust even less than they trust Faye.

When they confide rumors of other women beaten to death by a man so obsessed with burial that he places fresh flowers in their cold hands, Faye begs the police to widen the investigation to seek a serial killer. They refuse. Faye’s gut is telling her that a monster is stalking Memphis, endangering the child she has come to love. If the police can’t catch him, then she will have no choice but to try to find him herself.

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About the author
Mary Anna Evans is the author of the Faye Longchamp archaeological mysteries, which have received recognition including the Benjamin Franklin Award, the Mississippi Author Award, and three Florida Book Awards bronze medals. She is an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma, where she teaches fiction and nonfiction writing.

Connect with Mary Anna at maryannaevans.com and on Facebook.

All comments are welcomed.