Guest Post & Giveaway ~ Janet Bolin – Dire Threads

LIFE IMITATING ART IN UNCOMFORTABLE WAYS

 

I write murder mysteries, so I really would prefer that my life should not imitate my (ahem) art.

However . . .

One dark and snowy night, our dogs noticed a pair of teenagers in dark clothing with hoods over their heads and backpacks on their backs. The kids were rifling through cars in driveways. The police thanked us (and our dogs) for reporting the incident and said they’d watch for the guys.

Fast forward a month. It was raining, but I needed to walk to the post office right that very minute. I put on a baggy black rain parka and old scruffy sneakers. I plunked my packages into my backpack and set ou

It was colder than I thought. I pulled the hood up, zipped it to my chin, shoved my hands into my jacket pockets and leaned into the wind and spitting rain.

 

It wasn’t unusual to see one police cruiser, but two of them, together? And both unmarked?

The post office would be warm. I lengthened my stride. I would mail my packages, then walk home with the wind at my back instead of in my face.

Suddenly, the two cruisers whipped through a left turn, into the street I was about to cross. The first one came back and headed toward me. The driver and I made eye contact.

His face was red, and his cheeks were puffed out like he was trying to look really big. He was considerably older than most local police officers. He sped into a driveway of the house beside me. The second cruiser did a U-turn and stopped in front of the same house.

I crossed the street. I could hardly wait to get to that warm post office. Then I remembered that a mystery writer shouldn’t miss a real-life drama involving policemen and snazzy cruisers. I turned my back on the biting wind.

The second policeman stood at the open window of the first cruiser, chatting to the older policeman. I thought they were in a rush.

Even if they weren’t, I was. I hurried to the post office, mailed my packages and started back.

The cruisers were gone.

That’s when it dawned on me. I’d been hunching into my collar, squelching along in my sodden sneakers like a teenaged boy who hadn’t yet grown into his feet. I’d been wearing dark clothing, a backpack, and a hood nearly covering my face. Oops.

But the situation was potentially even worse.

That first policeman had looked like . . . like . . . oh, no! It couldn’t have been!

He’d looked exactly like Uncle Allen, the local police chief in my mystery novel, DIRE THREADS. Uncle Allen was not the most thorough of investigators. He was prone to suspecting the wrong person.

I’d created him, and then he nearly arrested me? Uh-oh.

About the author ~

MAYBE IT’S ALL ABOUT HOBBIES…

I was about seven, and for years (!), I’d been offering really helpful suggestions about the clothes my mother designed and sewed. Now I was going to make my own skirt.

At the fabric shop, I ran my fingers along each bolt of cloth, probably about sixteen times. My mother didn’t mind. She was doing the same thing. Finally, after much indecision and heavy consultation, I chose a navy blue cotton broadcloth with a red pin stripe.

Back home, under my mother’s close supervision, I cut out a couple of large rectangles and a strip for the waistband. Using my mother’s old black Singer, I carefully stitched the rectangles into a tube, then gathered the tube to the waistband. I made a buttonhole and sewed on a big red button. We folded a deep hem, and my mother, whose ability to stitch a straight line was far superior to mine, sewed the hem with her machine. For the finishing touch, she showed me how to wind red embroidery floss under one machine stitch and over the next.

I had made my own skirt and embroidered it, too. I was hooked.

I also loved reading. I asked where books came from. People wrote them? Wow! I knew what I wanted to do when I grew up.

Whether I grew up or not is debatable, but now I’m writing books in which my main character solves crimes. She also embroiders the way I do now, with sewing and embroidery machines.

What could be better?

 

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Email Janet ~ Janet AT threadvillemysteries DOT com

 

Her book ~

Dire Threads

Threadville has everything – a fabric store, yarn shop, notions store, quilting boutique, and Willow Vanderling’s brand new shop, In Stitches, a hit with tourists eager to learn embroidering in the latest way, with software and machines.

But when the village’s bullying zoning commissioner picks a fight with Willow and turns up dead in Willow’s yard, the close-knit community starts unraveling at the seams.

Willow must stitch together clues and find the real murderer, or the next thing she embroiders may be an orange prison jumpsuit…