A Crafty Collage of Crime (An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery) by Lois Winston #GuestPost / #Giveaway – Great Escapes Book Tour @Anasleuth

A Crafty Collage of Crime (An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery)
by Lois Winston

It is my pleasure to welcome back Lois Winston
to Escape With Dollycas!

Thank You, Agatha Christie!
By Lois Winston

I’ll be the first to admit I’m far from an Agatha Christie expert. However, as I think back over my journey of transitioning from writing romance to writing mysteries, I believe the seeds may have been planted years ago while watching Murder on the Orient Express.

You see, I have this maddening habit of being able to figure out whodunit very early on in a mystery. Doesn’t matter if it’s a book, movie, or TV episode. My husband has made me promise not to say a word while we’re watching mysteries, even if he says something like, “He’s the killer, right?” I have to remind him that I’m not supposed to offer an opinion until the credits roll so that I don’t spoil the ending for him.

I once attended a screenwriting workshop where the instructor asked us to raise our hands if we’d figured out the ending to The Sixth Sense before the dramatic conclusion of the movie. Mine was the only hand raised. Not only had I figured the ending out ahead of time, but I’d figured it out during the first scene of the movie. I thought it was so obvious after being bombarded for weeks by all those trailers on TV of Haley Joel Osment telling Bruce Willis, “I see dead people.”

I think this knack for ferreting out whodunit is a trait inherited from my grandfather. Grandpa Ben was the captain of a major east coast county police force back in the heyday of gangsters and organized crime and was responsible for helping capture some very notorious felons. Who knows? If I’d been born a few years later, I might have gone into law enforcement, but back when I was contemplating a career, that option was never on my radar.

So, you might ask, what does all this have to do with Agatha Christie and my personal author journey? It all harkens back to that evening in 1974 when my husband and I went to the movies to see Murder on the Orient Express. To my utter shock and amazement, I couldn’t figure out whodunit! Not only couldn’t I figure out whodunit, but then Dame Agatha threw me one huge curve of an ending. I remember sitting there thinking, “Well done!”

There’s an old saying, that goes, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” That saying might be true for many things but not for well-written mysteries. If a mystery author fools me, that author has a fan for life. Even though Anastasia Pollack, my own amateur sleuth, is far more Stephanie Plum than Miss Marple, Dame Agatha will always hold a special place in my heart for being the first mystery author able to fool Ben Schaffer’s granddaughter.

A Crafty Collage of Crime is the twelfth book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series. Usually, when I write a mystery, I start out knowing who both the victim and the killer will be. That wasn’t the case with this book. I kept vacillating between several possible suspects. I was three-quarters of the way through writing the book when I finally decided on the perpetrator. I hope I’ll keep readers guessing as well.

About A Crafty Collage of Crime

A Crafty Collage of Crime (An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
12th in Series
Setting – New Jersey and Tennessee
Independently Published (June 16, 2023)
Print length ‏ : ‎ 258 pages
ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0C4BHYXLB

Wherever crafts editor and reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack goes, murder and mayhem follow. Her honeymoon is no exception. She and new husband, photojournalist (and possible spy) Zachary Barnes, are enjoying a walk in the Tennessee woods when they stumble upon a body on the side of a creek. The dead man is the husband of one of the three sisters who own the winery and guest cottages where Anastasia and Zack are vacationing.

When the local sheriff sets his sights on the widow as the prime suspect, her sisters close ranks around her. The three siblings are true-crime junkies, and thanks to a podcaster who has produced an unauthorized series about her, Anastasia’s reputation for solving murders has preceded her to the bucolic hamlet. The sisters plead for her help in finding the real killer. As Anastasia learns more about the women and their business, a host of suspects emerge, including several relatives, a relentless land developer, and even the sisters themselves.

Meanwhile, Anastasia becomes obsessed with discovering the podcaster’s identity. Along with knowing about Anastasia’s life as a reluctant amateur sleuth, the podcaster has divulged details of Anastasia’s personal life. Someone has betrayed Anastasia’s trust, and she’s out to discover the identity of the culprit.

Craft project included.

About Lois Winston

USA Today and Amazon bestselling author Lois Winston began her award-winning writing career with Talk Gertie to Me, a humorous fish-out-of-water novel about a small-town girl going off to the big city and the mother who had other ideas. That was followed by the romantic suspense Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception.

Then Lois’s writing segued unexpectedly into the world of humorous amateur sleuth mysteries, thanks to a conversation her agent had with an editor looking for craft-themed mysteries. In her day job Lois was an award-winning craft and needlework designer, and although she’d never written a mystery—or had even thought about writing a mystery—her agent decided she was the perfect person to pen a series for this editor. Thus, was born the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, which Kirkus Reviews dubbed “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” The series now includes twelve novels and three novellas. Lois also writes the Empty Nest Mysteries, currently at two novels, and one book so far in her Mom Squad Capers series.

To date Lois has published twenty-one novels, five novellas, several short stories, one children’s chapter book, and one nonfiction book on writing, inspired by her twelve years working as an associate at a literary agency. To learn more about Lois and her books, visit her at www.loiswinston.com where you can sign up for her newsletter and follow her at various social media sites.

Author Links

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Purchase Links:

Amazon    Kobo   Barnes & Noble   Apple Books 

Also by Lois Winston 

TOUR PARTICIPANTS – Please visit all the stops. 
June 19 – Literary Gold – SPOTLIGHT
June 19 – Guatemala Paula Loves to Read – REVIEW
June 20 – Reading, Writing & Stitch-Metic – AUTHOR GUEST POST
June 20 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
June 21 – Hearts & Scribbles – SPOTLIGHT
June 22 – Jane Reads – AUTHOR INTERVIEW  
June 22 – Novels Alive – REVIEW
June 23 – Celticlady’s Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
June 23 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
June 24 – Baroness Book Trove – SPOTLIGHT
June 24 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – AUTHOR GUEST POST
June 25 – Indie Author Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
June 26 – #BRVL Book Review Virginia Lee – SPOTLIGHT
June 27 – Ascroft, eh? – CHARACTER INTERVIEW
June 28 – My Reading Journeys – CHARACTER GUEST POST  
June 29 – StoreyBook Reviews – AUTHOR GUEST POST
June 30 – Maureen’s Musings – SPOTLIGHT
June 30 – The Book’s the Thing – REVIEW
July 1 – Brooke Blogs – CHARACTER GUEST POST
July 2 – Cozy Up With Kathy – CHARACTER GUEST POST
July 2 – The Mystery Section – SPOTLIGHT

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