#CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA—A REAL-LIFE GLUE GUN CRIME WAVE?

By Lois Winston 

Although I don’t advocate assaults of any kind, I am a mystery author, and that means I write about assaults—often deadly ones. in Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, a killer uses my protagonist’s glue gun to kill his victim.

 

Nearly five months after the release of Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun back in 2011, a crime occurred in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and I have to wonder if my book was somehow responsible because a man assaulted another man with -- are you ready for this? A GLUE GUN!

 

Our neighbors to the north thought this was hilarious, sending CBCNews in Canada emails containing such gems as:

 

“Stick em up!”

 

“It could have turned into a sticky situation.”

 

“Of course if this glue gun had been properly registered, then this never would have happened.”

 

“Obviously a case of male bonding!”

 

“Scrap-book him, Danno.”

 

Since first reading of the incident in Newfoundland, I’ve learned of other glue gun related crimes. 

 

Two and a half months before the Canadian assault, some crafty thieves used a glue gun to rob a series of ATM machines in the San Francisco Bay area.

 

In 2018 a masked man brandishing a glue gun attempted to hold up a Bubble Tea establishment in Brownsville, Brooklyn.

 

Last August, a man used a glue gun to rob a credit union in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.

 

I also came across several assaults using glue guns that are too gruesome to mention here. I just hope none of perpetrators of these crimes were influenced by my book!