Readers, fellow writer Lois Winston is on the page (and the case!) today...
It’s pretty much a universal truth that cozy readers love their fur babies, both in their lives and in the books they read. Some cozy mysteries include dogs, some include cats, and some include both dogs and cats. Occasionally you’ll find a cozy that features an exotic pet, with or without the prerequisite dog or cat. My Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series includes a dog, a cat, and a Shakespeare-quoting African Grey parrot.
I’m a cozy mystery author without a fur baby keeping me company as I peck away at my computer. It’s not that I don’t like fur babies; it’s because I have allergies. Bad allergies to just about anything you can pet or cuddle. Tropical fish are probably safe, but do they really qualify as pets? Debatable. They’re neither cuddly nor petable. If it has fur or feathers, I need to steer clear, and chances are, I’d also have issues with amphibians and reptiles. However, even if I didn’t, I really don’t see myself typing with a snake looped around my neck or a frog hopping across my keyboard. I’m even allergic to certain people—or at least their choices in grooming products.
I used to have pets. When I was a teenager, we had a dog. I walked around sneezing and coughing and suffering from horrible sinus headaches for several years until I left for college. Once I had my own apartment, I tried kittens. What was I thinking? The headaches, sneezing, and coughing returned with a vengeance.
When my kids were young, we got them a pair of gerbils. Even though I stayed far away from them, I still suffered.
So, sadly, I remain petless. However, Anastasia Pollack, my reluctant amateur sleuth, is far from petless. Along with her two teenage sons, she shares her small New Jersey rancher with her communist mother-in-law Lucille and Lucille’s French bulldog Manifesto. The dog is named for the communist treatise, but Anastasia and her sons refer to him as either Mephisto or Devil Dog, the names being more suited to the dog’s personality, which mirrors that of his cantankerous and curmudgeonly owner.
Flora Sudberry Periwinkle Ramirez Scoffield Goldberg O’Keefe Tuttnauer, Anastasia’s much-married mother, crashes at Anastasia’s home between husbands and is always accompanied by her corpulent Persian cat, Catherine the Great. Flora claims descent from Russian nobility, hence the cat’s name. She and her pet also share a huge sense of entitlement with both human and feline believing the world revolves around them and their needs.
As you can imagine, sparks constantly fly, not only between the commie and the self-proclaimed Romanoff princess but also between their four-legged counterparts.
However, beginning in Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, the third book in the series, when Manifesto aided Anastasia in catching a killer, I decided the dog deserved some character growth and a story arc of his own. By Guilty as Framed, the eleventh book in the series, Manifesto has come into his own. Much to the chagrin of Anastasia’s mother-in-law, he’s found a new best friend and acquired a new name.
Rounding out the menagerie is Ralph, the previously mentioned Shakespeare-quoting parrot. Anastasia inherited Ralph from her great-aunt Penelope Periwinkle. She would have preferred her aunt’s cameo collection because cameos don’t require feeding, watering, and cage cleaning. When you’re a cash-strapped single-parent trying to dig yourself out of the massive debt your husband surprised you with after he slipped his mortal coil, the last thing you need is additional responsibilities and another mouth to feed.
However, Ralph is no ordinary parrot. Having spent most of his long life with Professor Penelope, both in and out of her lecture halls, he’s quite the Shakespearean scholar in his own right. Although African Greys are known to have exceptional intelligence and huge vocabularies, Ralph completely out-parrots the other members of his species with his ability to quote situation-appropriate asides from the Bard of Avon’s many plays.
Is this possible? Even though I’ve read up on the species, I’m no parrot expert. It doesn’t matter, though. I write fiction – humorous fiction – no matter the body count. If readers can suspend their disbelief enough to accept a protagonist who stumbles across more dead bodies than the average homicide detective in an entire law enforcement career, why not a Shakespeare-quoting parrot?
Cage cleaning aside, Ralph has proven his worth. With his magnificent wingspan and swooping prowess, he’s become a staunch defender of the two-legged residents of Casa Pollack and is far better at dealing with intruders than the four-legged members of the family. In Guilty as Framed, Ralph even held his own against a Boston mob boss. Besides, unlike a certain canine, he’s potty-trained, requiring no walks in rain, sleet, or snow at the break of dawn or in the dead of night.
Given the assorted murder and mayhem I regularly dump on Anastasia, Ralph is also good for providing comic relief, especially when unsuspecting characters first hear him recite a few lines from one of Shakespeare’s plays. Not only is his timing spot on, but he also quotes the play’s title, act, and scene. If there were stage parts written for Shakespeare-spouting parrots, Ralph could wipe out Anastasia’s staggering debt before you could say, “All the world’s a stage.”
Of the three pets who vie for attention in Anastasia’s world, Ralph is top dog, even if he is a parrot. He’s also developed quite the bromance with photojournalist Zachary Barnes, who entered Anastasia’s life when she rented him the apartment above her garage in Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series. Over the course of fourteen novels and three novellas, Anastasia and Zack’s relationship has segued from one of business to romance. However, there are still some things Anastasia doesn’t know about Zack. Even though she suspects the photojournalism is a cover for his real job with one of the government alphabet agencies, he claims she has an overactive imagination. Ralph might know the truth, but so far, he’s not squawking.
An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 14
When staffing shortages continue to hamper the Union County homicide squad, Detective Sam Spader once again turns to his secret weapon, reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack. How can she and husband Zack Barnes refuse when the victim is their new neighbor?
Revolutionary War reenactor Barry Sumner had the odd habit of spending hours mowing a small patch of packed dirt and weeds until his mower ran out of gas. He’d then guzzle beer on his front porch until he passed out. That’s where Anastasia’s son Nick discovers his body three days after the victim and his family moved into the newly built mini-McMansion across the street.
After a melee breaks out at the viewing, Spader zeroes in on the widow as his prime suspect. However, Anastasia has her doubts. There are other possible suspects, including a woman who’d had an affair with the victim, his ex-wife, the man overseeing the widow’s trust fund, a drug dealer, and the reenactors who were blackmailing the widow and victim.
When another reenactor is murdered, Spader suspects they’re dealing with a serial killer, but Anastasia wonders if the killer is attempting to misdirect the investigation. As she narrows down the suspects, will she jeopardize her own life to learn the truth?
Craft projects included.
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Lois Winston is an award-winning and USA Today and Amazon bestselling author. Along with currently writing the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, she’s the author of fourteen other novels and novellas in both mystery and romance, as well as several short stories, one middle-grade book and a nonfiction book. Learn more at http://www.loiswinston.com where you can sign up for her newsletter to receive an Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery.
