In the beginning of BEYOND A REASONABLE DONUT, Emily Westhill anticipates three special events near her home in Fallingbrook, Wisconsin.
The first one is the Faker’s Dozen Carnival, a Friday the thirteenth celebration where Emily and Nina, one of Emily’s assistants at Deputy Donut, will sell corn fritters. They’ll also have time to tour the carnival. Nina is most excited about the good and bad luck tent where she’ll get to break mirrors and walk under ladders. Nina is an artist who paints enormous canvases. She has no fear of ladders.
The second event is the wedding of Emily’s longtime friend, Samantha, at the Lake Cares Away Resort.
The third event is Nina’s solo show. Her paintings will be displayed at a prestigious art gallery.
Those are the plans . . .
However, bad luck hits on Friday the thirteenth shortly after the Faker’s Dozen Carnival ends. A woman who attended the festival is fatally injured in Nina’s apartment, and Nina is arrested. Can Emily figure out who the actual culprit is so that Nina can attend Samantha’s wedding and the opening of her art show?
While Nina is being held in jail, Emily, Samantha, their friend Misty, and Emily’s cat Deputy Donut, usually called Dep, go out to the Lake Cares Away Resort for a mini-vacation leading up to the wedding. The women look forward to swimming, lounging around, cooking fantastic breakfasts, and eating other meals in the main lodge’s gourmet restaurant. The ceremony will be held in a tent on a lawn sloping toward the beach. The rehearsal and rehearsal dinner will also be held at the Lake Cares Away Resort. Samantha, Emily, and Misty joke that no one really believes that the lake should be called Lake Scares Away.
The Lake Cares Away Resort is a figment of my imagination.
However, an actual resort-inspired it. Several years ago, I was lucky enough to visit the Little Bohemia Inn near Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin. The Little Bohemia Inn is famous because of a notorious guest and his buddies who stayed there in 1934. Encouraged by FBI bullets, the gangsters left rather hurriedly. That time, John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson managed to get away.
Scenes of the film PUBLIC ENEMIES, starring Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, were shot on location at the Little Bohemia Inn.
For BEYOND A REASONABLE DONUT, I maintained some of the Little Bohemia Inn‘s setting. I enlarged the lodge, its restaurant, the acreage, and the lake, lengthened the driveway and added twists and turns to it, and added many log cabins set among tall trees. I also gave the shore a gentle slope instead of a high bank that could (and did) shield fleeing gangsters. I even added a stable.
No gangsters probably ever stayed at my fictitious Lake Cares Away Resort. The make-believe resort should not be scary.
However . . . you’ll have to read the book to see whether Emily’s, Samantha’s, and Misty’s teasing nickname ends up fitting the Lake Cares Away Resort.
I don’t know what might have changed in the years since I visited the Little Bohemia Inn. If you look closely at a photo I took, you might see a few of the holes shot into the lodge on a cold night in April, 1934.
Learn more – https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/john-dillinger and be sure to watch the video embedded in the article – https://youtu.be/CYQJQY6Oy30
A Deputy Donut Mystery: Book 5
Publication Date: May 25, 2021
Selling her corn fritters at a carnival, Deputy Donut Café owner Emily Westhill faces off against a murderer who doesn’t play fair . . .
Emily and her assistant, Nina, are looking forward to manning the Deputy Donut tent at the Faker’s Dozen Carnival in Fallingbrook, Wisconsin—a festival held on Friday the thirteenth to celebrate good and bad luck. But Emily has barely dropped the corn fritters in oil when bad luck boils up. First, their bucket of confectioner’s sugar disappears—and then while a mime creates a distraction, a magician robs their cash register.
After the carnival, their misfortune continues. Emily discovers that someone has broken into artist Nina’s loft and vandalized a large painting in progress with the bucket of stolen sugar, which is now on the head of the mime, who seems to have been suffocated. Emily would bet Nina was the intended victim, but the cops think Nina silenced the mime. Now Emily must catch the killer white-handed—before someone else kicks the bucket . . .
Ginger Bolton writes the Deputy Donut mystery series—coffee, donuts, cops, danger, and one curious cat. The first four books in the series are SURVIVAL OF THE FRITTERS, GOODBYE CRULLER WORLD, JEALOUSY FILLED DONUTS, and the latest, BOSTON SCREAM MURDER. JEALOUSY FILLED DONUTS was chosen as the Woman’s World Best New Cozy Mystery of the week and was named as one of Dollycas’s Best Reads of 2019. BEYOND A REASONABLE DONUT will be on store shelves May 25, 2021. When Ginger isn’t writing or reading, she’s crocheting, knitting, sewing, or generally causing trouble. She’s also fond of donuts and coffee. As Janet Bolin, Ginger wrote the Threadville Mysteries—murder and mayhem in a village of crafty shops.
May 17 – I’m All About Books – SPOTLIGHT
May 17 – Novels Alive – GUEST POST
May 17 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT
May 18 – Ascroft, eh? – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
May 18 – Valerie’s Musings – REVIEW
May 18 – Moonlight Rendezvous – REVIEWS, EXCERPT
May 19 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – REVIEW, EXCERPT
May 19 – Diane Reviews Books – GUEST POST
May 19 – Lisa Ks Book Reviews – REVIEW, EXCERPT
May 20 – Reading Is My SuperPower – REVIEW
May 20 – Laura’s Interests – REVIEW
May 20 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – CHARACTER GUEST POST
May 21 – View from the Birdhouse – REVIEW
May 21 – My Reading Journeys – REVIEW
May 21 – Baroness’ Book Trove – REVIEW
May 22 – Socrates Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
May 22 – Books a Plenty Book Reviews – REVIEW, CHARACTER GUEST POST
May 23 – Celticlady’s Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
May 23 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT, EXCERPT Â
May 24 – Brooke Blogs – SPOTLIGHT Â
May 24 – Literary Gold – CHARACTER GUIEST POST
May 25 – Reading, Writing & Stitch-Metic – GUEST POST
May 25 – Maureen’s Musings – SPOTLIGHT
May 26 – Melina’s Book Blog – REVIEW
May 26 – BookishKelly2020 – SPOTLIGHT Â
Thank you for hosting me!
You’re most welcome, Ginger! Come back anytime! 🙂
Okay!