Pastime With Books: Sunny Benson – 10 Things You Didn’t Know About January Exposure

10 Things You Didn’t Know About January Exposure

by Sunny Benson

January Exposure incorporates three mysteries into one storyline: a kidnapping, wacky pranks at a rest home, and a murder. The three mysteries intertwine and relate to one another, and all are resolved by the end of the book.
Can you deduce who did it? January Exposure is a whodunit, with clues interspersed throughout the novel. Every major character is a suspect for wrongdoing. The protagonist, Ellie Craven, doesn’t know whether to protect her family members or to flee from them.
January Exposure refers to Ellie’s mother as ‘Iron Chef Cheesecake’. My mother is the original ‘Iron Chef Cheesecake’. I hear an Iron Chef gong inside my head every time I see my mom carrying one of her luscious cheesecake concoctions to the table.
I originally wanted to write twelve book-of-the-month mysteries, including “January” in the title for the first Ellie Craven book and “February” in the title of the second. Then I learned there’s already a series of book-of-the-month mysteries set in Minnesota, so I had to change my naming convention. I titled the second book in the series “Fargo Fracture” as a result.
Although I incorporated a few characteristics from real life people into the characters of January Exposure, none of the characters in the book are based on real life people, whether physically or personality-wise.
Settings in the book based on real life locations in the Fargo-Moorhead area include Dike West and the ice rink.
The word “Exposure” in the title reflects the book’s reoccurring theme of exposure. The murder victim in the book dies of exposure to cold, the protagonist exposes the evildoers in the book, and the protagonist herself experiences exposure due to her perennially bragging mother and the media.
January Exposure refers to many North Dakotan and Minnesotan characteristic items and places, including buffalo, prairie dogs, White Butte, ice fishing, lutefisk, lefse, and walleye.
The amateur wrestler character, “The Duke”, and the phrase found on a T-shirt, “Fargo Frenzy”, will reappear in the second book in the series.
When writing January Exposure, I didn’t know the identity of the killer until I reached the end of the book.