Sarah Wisseman writes the Lisa Donahue archaeological mystery series. She
hadn’t a clue that she wanted to be an archaeologist until she traveled to Israel right after her freshman year in college.
There she ate felafel, fell in love with Jerusalem, camped illegally on Masada, and spent a month at the excavation of biblical
Beersheba. Once hooked by archaeology, she returned for her Junior Year Abroad at Tel Aviv University, an experience that
eventually inspired Book 1, The Dead Sea Codex.
In her day job, Sarah is an archaeological scientist at the Program on Ancient Technologies and Archaeological Materials (ATAM) at the University of Illinois. Her research project on Egyptian mummies led to the second Lisa Donahue mystery, Bound for Eternity. Books 3 and 4 in the Lisa Donahue
series, The Fall of Augustus and The House of the Sphinx, were published in late 2009. (***To
read the first few chapters of The House of the Sphinx, visit the Fall 2011 isssue of Mysterical-E).
Sarah is currently submitting her first historical mystery (set in central
Illinois during Prohibition) and is beginning a fifth Lisa Donhue mystery. She lives in Champaign, IL, with her husband and
two cats.
THE LISA DONAHUE SERIES:
Lisa is an archaeologist and museum curator, like her creator. She works in a (fictional)
creepy attic museum on the Boston University campus and is a specialist on ceramic technology and Egyptian mummies. The
books take her through the period just before her first marriage, the loss of her husband, her moved to Boston with a five-year
old daughter in tow, and the forming of a new family with radiologist James Barber and his son Sam. Lisa's journey brings
her into conflict with peculiar and vindictive bosses, jealous colleagues, and her best friend Ellen. The settings of the
four books combine some of the author's favorite places: Boston and Cape Cod, museums of all kinds, and the Middle East (Israel
and Egypt).
Book 1, THE DEAD SEA CODEX (2006): Two archaeologists race to find an ancient manuscript
in Isreal before Christian fanatics destroy it...
Book 2, BOUND FOR ETERNITY (2005, new edition 2012): A museum curator discovers that an Egyptian
mummy holds the secret to two murders in her Boston Museum...
Book 3, THE FALL OF AUGUSTUS (2009): When a falling statue wipes out Lisa Donahue's
boss, she becomes interim director of her Boston museum. Suddenly she's juggling murder, a major move to a new building, and
a vicious woman from her past...
Book 4, THE HOUSE OF THE SPHINX (2009): While traveling in Egypt, an archaeologist and her physician
husband stumble upon a plan to infect Western tourists with smallpox...
"Wicked! Wisseman
just keeps getting better!"
--Molly MacRae, author of the novel Wilder Rumors and
short stories in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery
Magazine.
"...Wisseman’s books are of
interest for a number of reasons: she lives and works right here in Champaign-Urbana, the novels are fast-paced and carefully
constructed, and the author’s background as a UI archaeologist add other dimensions for the reader to consider.
So, if you want to support a local author, enjoy a crafted mystery, or ponder the relationship between science and suspense,
head to Jane Addams bookstore and pick up one of Sarah Wisseman’s novels."
Here's another article about her books from the University of Illinois News Bureau.
