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I'm trying an experiment in reaching out to other authors and introducing my blog readers to mysteries they might enjoy. So as long as I get volunteers, my Wednesday blog will feature a guest. Please welcome my guest, award-winning craft author Lois Winston. Lois has hosted me at Killer Crafts and Crafty Killers several times, and I'm delighted to return the favor. Thanks, Lois, for being my guinea pig.
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The amateur sleuth mystery is a
popular genre. Most of the sleuths featured in these mysteries become amateur
sleuths because of their inherent curiosity and dominant Snoop Gene. To put it
bluntly, they can’t keep their noses out of other people’s business. They also
think they know more than the professionals assigned to ferreting out the bad
guys. Some, after starring in a certain number of series books, even branch out
and become professional detectives. Every amateur sleuth thinks she’s the next
generation Nancy Drew or Jessica Fletcher.
Not so with Anastasia Pollack,
protagonist of the eponymous Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series. My
amateur sleuth is decidedly reluctant. She’d like nothing better than to turn
the clock back to that time not so long ago when she led a typical middle-class
life with a devoted husband, two great kids, and a job she loved as the crafts
editor at a women’s magazine.
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Unfortunately, as documented in Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, the
first book in the series, Anastasia’s life will never again be what it was. The
series opens with Anastasia discovering that her recently deceased husband led
a double life. The devoted husband and father was secretly more devoted to his
mistress, Lady Luck, than to his wife and kids. Before dropping dead at a
roulette table in Las Vegas (when Anastasia thought he was at a sales meeting
in Harrisburg, PA,) Karl Pollack gambled his family into deep debt. He also
owes fifty grand to a loan shark who doesn’t care that Karl is now dead and
Anastasia is penniless.
But what would an amateur sleuth
mystery be without a murder? When Anastasia returns to work after the funeral,
she discovers the body of the fashion editor glued to Anastasia’s desk
chair. The weapon? Anastasia’s glue gun—complete with her fingerprints and no
others. The police believe they have an open-and-shut case. Anastasia has to
find the killer before she’s arrested for a murder she didn’t commit.
However, solving the murder is
only one of her many problems. Anastasia needs to dig herself out of debt. Her
husband left her with a mountain of unpaid bills, unfiled income tax returns,
and drained bank accounts. In order to climb out of debt, Anastasia finds ways
to moonlight in each subsequent book to whittle down that debt and find a way
to pay for college for her sons.
But that’s not all. Karl also
stuck Anastasia with his nasty communist mother, camped out (now permanently)
in Anastasia’s home, along with Manifesto, her French bulldog. The arrival of
Anastasia’s mother, a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and
Catherine the Great, her white Persian cat, adds another level of tension and
dysfunction to the already tense household.
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The one glimmer of light in
Anastasia’s life becomes Zack Barnes, the photojournalist who rents the
apartment above her garage. Except he might not really be a photojournalist.
More and more, Anastasia suspects he really works for one of the government
alphabet agencies—the ones who go off on secret missions.
And did I mention there’s a
Shakespeare-quoting parrot?
If you haven’t figured it out
already, these are humorous mysteries. Anastasia has been compared quite
favorably to both Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum and Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon in
starred reviews from Publishers Weekly
and Booklist. Kirkus Reviews called Anastasia “North Jersey’s more mature answer
to Stephanie Plum.”
There are currently four
full-length Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries available in both print and as
ebooks: Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, Death
by Killer Mop Doll, Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, and the recently released
Decoupage Can Be Deadly. In addition,
there are two ebook-only Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mysteries: Crewel Intentions and Mosaic Mayhem. Sample chapters and buy links
for all can be found on my website: http://www.loiswinston.com.
About Lois
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Award-winning author Lois Winston
writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, and
non-fiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. In addition, Lois
is an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often
draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her
experiences in the crafts industry. Visit
Lois at www.loiswinston.com, visit
Emma at www.emmacarlyle.com, and visit
Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog, www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com.
Follow everyone on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Anasleuth
and Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/anasleuth
6 comments:
What wonderful book titles! It tells me the writing inside will be equally entertaining, and I look forward to checking out your mysteries. A reluctant sleuth, indeed.
Putting an amateur sleuth in jeopardy - of one form or another - is a great way to raise the stakes and make that sleuth work harder to solve the crime. I tossed Barbara Reed in the Columbia River twice in No Substitute for Murder, and had the bad guy kidnap her dog in No Substitute for Money. Maybe she's a masochist, but she'll be back in January, staring down the barrel of a gun in No Substitute for Maturity.
I think the reluctant amateur sleuth is a bit more believable and maybe even more likeable. S/he doesn't come off as a busybody or know-it-all. The reader can identify more with the person who gets involved, for instance, to save a friend or relative who's wrongly accused. My series character is both a reluctant sleuth and a reluctant psychic! Because she "saw" something no one else did, she is recruited to help solve the crime. The amateur sleuth needs a strong incentive to keep the story believable.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting, Christine, Carolyn, and Eileen!
Christine, I hope you enjoy the books, should you decide to read them.
Carolyn, it's always a great idea to throw lots of trouble your protagonist's way--even though it might seem like we authors are a bit sadistic in doing so! ;-)
Eileen, I agree with you. I think a reluctant amateur sleuth is much more believable. That's why I made Anastasia one. She has a reason for getting involved in all these investigations beyond just innate curiosity or nosiness.
My series character, a former teen idol making a comeback, gets involved because people drop dead at his feet or he stumbles over rthe body--literally. And I love putting him in jeopardy too. I think amateur sleuths are more interesting. Police/PIs solve crimes because it's their job, but reluctant sleuth has to work harder to overcome his/her misgivings. Nice post, Lois.
Thanks, Sally! I agree with you. I'd much rather read about an amateur sleuth than a professional in law enforcement.
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