MYSTERY AUTHOR ANNE LOUISE BANNON'S NEWEST RELEASE HAS A HOLIDAY TWIST

Mystery author Anne Louise Bannon has worked as a freelance journalist for magazines and newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times. Her mystery series include the Old Los Angeles Series, the Freddie and Kathy Series, and the Operation Quickline Series. With her husband Michael Holland she created the OddBallGrape.com wine education blog and is also the co-author (with Serita Stevens) of a book on poisons for writers. Learn more about Anne Louise and her books at her website.

Re-Visiting Christmas

Happy Boxing Day, everyone!

 

Yes, I am one of those who enjoys keeping Christmas going all the way through January 6 (aka Twelfth Night or the Feast of the Epiphany). So, it’s no surprise that Christmas figures into a few of my novels, particularly the Operation Quickline Series. That’s the one featuring Lisa Wycherly and Sid Hackbirn as a pair of spies who fall for each other. In short, the books are essentially cozy spy novels. Or romances with espionage intrusions.

 

I’ve been publishing them first as serials on my blogs, which is a lot of fun, and the most recent, Just Because You’re Paranoid, finished up the week before Christmas. I hadn’t planned it that way, but it worked out especially well since the novel ends with the holiday. Even more fun, there’s a scene sort of near the end that echoes a scene in the first Quickline novel, That Old Cloak and Dagger Routine.

 

The series is set in the 1980s. In the first novel, Lisa comes to live at Sid’s house and gets recruited into the spy business as Sid’s partner. By the time December rolls around, Sid and Lisa are just beginning their friendship and the focus is on how different they are in terms of their values. Sid is a playboy, spending four to six nights a week trying to get laid, and he is more successful than not. Lisa is a nice, church-going woman and a virgin. Sid was also raised as an atheist by an aunt who was a Communist, and they lived among a bunch of bohemians, beatniks, and later hippies, which accounts for Sid’s belief in free love.

 

In fact, we find out that Sid has never celebrated holidays, including Thanksgiving (“A part of Capitalistic propaganda to convince the people they are not oppressed and dedicated to a god that doesn’t exist.”) or Christmas.

 

Lisa, on the other hand, loves Christmas, loves decorating the house, loves eggnog, and the annual Christmas pajamas from her mom. And, yes, Sid gets swept into it. In particular, there’s the scene where Lisa has borrowed Sid’s car to get the Christmas tree. Lisa comes back from the errand bubbling over. She has, once again, found the perfect tree. Sid is a little perturbed to find a tree tied to the top of his beloved Mercedes 450SL, but helps Lisa get it off the car, and hefts the tree into the house, as Lisa shouts out directions to bring it in foot-first. She’s already shifted some of the furniture in the living room to make room in the front window. The tree is gorgeous, but exactly five inches too tall.

 

Fast forward three years to the holiday season in Just Because You’re Paranoid.

Sid and Lisa are engaged to be married. The two jointly own what had been Sid’s house and it has been completely remodeled. Lisa’s parents, who have in the past stayed with her sister Mae and her family, are spending the holiday at Sid and Lisa’s place. Sid has taken custody of his 12-year-old son, and it’s Nick’s first Christmas with Sid and Lisa and her family.

 

The bringing home of the tree remains the same. Lisa arrives home with Nick, shouting and bubbling over. Sid gets called on, along with Bill, Lisa’s father, to get the even larger tree out of her truck. Lisa shouts instructions on how to remove the tree and get it into the house as Sid reminds her repeatedly that they’ve done this before. And the tree is five inches too tall. Again.

 

Yes, there are significant differences, which is part of the fun. But there is also a connection to the past Christmases that was so much fun to play with. It’s how real life happens, and it’s one of those things that makes Christmas and other such holidays so very special. Every year we celebrate Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, or whatever we celebrate, is utterly new. We’re different people than we were before. But it’s also a connection to the past, as well. Not only the history that gave us the holidays, but our personal histories as well. And it’s fun to celebrate that, even fictionally.

 

Just Because You’re Paranoid

Operation Quickline, Book 9

 

It doesn't mean they're not out to get you

 

Lisa Wycherly and Sid Hackbirn find themselves up against a relentless enemy and about to get the shock of their lives in book nine of the Operation Quickline Series. First, there's the wedding. Not Sid and Lisa's, but her cousin Maggie's, where Sid and his son, Nick, raise all sorts of eyebrows. 

 

Then there's the attempt on Sid's life. Then Sid and Lisa's good friends are recruited into their top-secret organization. Then there's Lisa's sister being jealous, and a new house getting close to being ready, and Sid and Lisa's own wedding to work on, and Nick bringing home every bug there is at his new school and sharing it with his parents.

 

Being highly trained top-secret counter-intelligence agents will only help so far as the circles of family complications ripple outward. Sid and Lisa try to cope with the multiple surprises as they train their two friends and track down a ruthless killer determined to take both of them out.

 

Buy Link