Knitting Needles Instead of Guns? Only in Canada
As you probably know, book covers are really important to authors, publishers, and readers. This fall, I learned that writing a mystery about seniors who’ve developed a nasty rivalry over their knitted products presented a challenge for my publisher’s cover designer. After going back and forth with ideas, I’m very happy with the image, especially since a ball of wool and bloodied knitting needles is not your typical mystery novel cover!
In A Toxic Craft, no one uses a gun. After all, this is a cozy mystery set in Canada, where most citizens don’t own firearms. Security guards like my protagonist Evan Dunstan aren’t permitted to carry them. When I worked in campus security, I remember my supervisor saying that the day guards are allowed to carry guns is the day she’ll quit.
Most murders in Canada—that aren’t gang related—seem to involve knives. Although, before I became a security guard, a young woman was killed with a crossbow at the post-secondary site where I wound up working. The only violence I experienced, however, was a chair thrown at an employee by a frustrated student.
In this book, the hostility ramps up for Evan. Several attempts are made to get rid of nasty knitter Cora Riddell in a variety of ways. The inspiration for my cover comes from a threat near the beginning of the book, when a knitter named Flo threatens to stab Cora with a knitting needle. Does it actually happen? Well, that’s part of the mystery, isn’t it?
To order A Toxic Craft, go to:
Amazon: myBook.to/AToxicCraft
Kobo: http://tinyurl.com/ycsvuaj5
Debra has published short stories in a variety of genres as well as personal essays, and articles for publications such as Chicken Soup for the Bride’s Soul, B.C. Parent Magazine, and The Vancouver Sun. She assists as a facilitator for the Creative Writing Program through Port Moody Recreation, and has presented workshops and talks for organizations that include Mensa and Beta Sigma Phi. She is a long-time member of Crime Writers of Canada.
Look for her blog at http://writetype.blogspot.ca More information about Debra and her books is at www.debrapurdykong.com You can also find her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DebraPurdyKong & Facebook: www.facebook.com/debra.purdykong
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