Readers sometimes ask how a man who spent his career in the automotive aftermarket ended up writing about a serial killer on the Constitution Trail. It’s a fair question. The short answer is that business taught me more about people, pressure, and puzzles than I ever expected.
Where I started
I went to work in the automotive aftermarket in 1972. From 1978 to 1986, I owned and operated MAGIC Auto Glass in Florida, which grew to nine retail stores and a wholesale distribution company. In 1986 I sold it to Lear Siegler, a Fortune 200 company that then owned Safelite Auto Glass, and stayed on as a district manager, then manager of acquisitions, then vice president for New England.
From there I joined Windshields America, rising to president and CEO in 1992. Later I served as an executive director at Belron International in Richmond, Surrey, England, building businesses in Brazil and Canada, and from 2004 to 2012 I was president and CEO of Glass America. Along the way my work took me to every continent but one.
Lesson one: everyone has a motive
When you buy and merge companies, you learn quickly that people rarely tell you everything at the first meeting. Every seller, partner, and competitor has interests of their own, and the deal only makes sense once you understand them.
That’s how Sasha approaches a case. In Deliberate Duplicity, bodies are found one by one along the Constitution Trail in Bloomington-Normal, each posed with eyes wide open. Sasha’s first questions are the ones I learned to ask across the negotiating table: What does this person want? And how are these people connected? I learned that lesson most deeply in 1996, when, as CEO of Windshields America, I helped negotiate our merger with Globe Glass & Mirror. It was a long negotiation, and it ultimately led to Belron owning Safelite Auto Glass. Deals like that are won by understanding what each person at the table truly needs.
Lesson two: the numbers don’t lie, but they don’t talk either
For a time I served as both chief financial officer and chief executive officer of a national retail company. Holding both roles teaches you to respect data and to distrust easy conclusions. A report can tell you what happened. It almost never tells you why.
Sasha works the same way. He gathers evidence patiently, and he knows a clue is only as good as the question you ask of it. In Cold Consequences, when a judge’s granddaughter is shot and his suspects start turning up dead or missing, the evidence keeps pointing in new directions. Sasha has to keep asking until the web untangles.
Lesson three: pressure reveals character
I spent most of my career in leadership roles, and the hardest days were never about spreadsheets. They were about people under pressure: a struggling region, an integration going sideways, a decision that couldn’t wait. You find out who someone really is when the stakes rise.
Sasha is “ordinarily calm and collected,” but as the pressure builds in Deliberate Duplicity, he begins to feel it. I wanted a detective who is good at his job, not superhuman, and who carries the weight of the people counting on him. Readers often ask who Sasha is based on. The honest answer is me. Sasha solves problems the way I learned to as an international executive: flying more than 5.5 million miles across the globe, walking into unfamiliar situations, listening carefully, and working the puzzle until the pieces fit.
Lesson four: a good team wins
I’ve mentored many direct reports who went on to executive roles at national and international companies, and I’m prouder of that than of any title I held. No leader succeeds alone.
Sasha doesn’t either. He works with a team, and much of the satisfaction of a police procedural is watching capable people each do their part.
Why Bloomington?
I set the series in Bloomington, Illinois, because Central Illinois is home. I grew up in Paxton, about an hour’s drive east, and my wife and I both have family in the area. After a career spent traveling the world, I wanted my stories rooted somewhere real, with neighborhoods, landmarks, and a former railroad line turned walking trail that readers could picture.
From the boardroom to the crime scene
After a long business career, I decided to write a murder mystery series. Deliberate Duplicity came out in January 2021, and its prequel, Cold Consequences, followed in July 2021. Publishers Weekly’s BookLife called Cold Consequences “an enthralling, heart-pounding police procedural that will keep readers guessing from start to finish.” I’m thinking about writing a third Sasha Frank novel.
Business taught me that every situation is a puzzle with people at its center. Mysteries are no different. They just have a higher body count.
Investigate for yourself. Pick up Deliberate Duplicity and Cold Consequences — signed copies are available — and join my newsletter at davidrohlfing.com to hear first about Sasha’s next case.