Fiona – Fiona Quinn and Tina Glasneck walked into a bar….
Tina – The beginning of a great joke. What happened next?
Fiona– A bet was laid about co-authoring a book. Okay, not really a bar bet, a brewery bet. We weren’t actually drinking, we were sniffing.
Tina – Wait, that sounds bad – people will get the wrong impression.
Fiona – We were sniffing fumes. Not on purpose, I mean we were there in the brewery during production, signing our books at the holiday book event, and sniffing the fumes for hours.
Tina – And hours.
Fiona – And we had our fellow writers from Sisters in Crime egging us on.
Tina – They’re good at egging.
Fiona – So as I remember it, we were laughing about something stupid, and you let the F bomb fly – well, you spelled it, ‘cause you’re a mom. And I misheard. I thought you had said, “If you see Kay.” And I was all like “doing what?”
Tina – Right and then you said that would make a great title for a book.
Fiona – If you added a verb
Tina – A verb was required. That and, you know, a story line. Plot makes perfection.
Fiona – Yeah, that’s kind of important.
Tina -Of course your mind went to one of the most embarrassing moments of my life, and it takes a hell of a lot to embarrass me for sure.
Fiona – I’m your friend. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t remember your most embarrassing moments and remind you of them?
Tina – In public no less.
Fiona – Everyone laughed. You were a hit! Why don’t you tell folks what you did – go on, tell them, Oh booster of the local police department.
Tina– I don’t know if everyone is ready to share in my embarrassment. My goodness, the positions we writers put ourselves in for the good of our writing.
Fiona– Uhm, Tina? Maybe not the best of word choices, given the story you’re about to tell.
Tina – Okay, just between you and me, this is what happened: While working on a different crime book, I decided to go to the local Citizen’s Police Academy. It was a 6-week course taught by several different officers, providing us with a behind the scenes of the police department.
Fiona – So, you’re there on the very first night, and you decided to let all the officers know just how interested you were in going behind the scenes with them. Girlfriend! You sure know how to make a name for yourself. Infamous. You are now infamous in that police department. Which, I have to say, is one heck of an accomplishment.
Tina– Ugh. Like everyone else, I had to introduce myself and say something unique about me. My palms were sweaty; the room was full of strangers. And more than half of them were police officers, all in their crisp blue uniforms and shiny badges.
Fiona– And here’s the part where Tina made the jaws hit the floor.
Tina – So, I’m there, and I stand up — I’d dressed up for the occasion too, so I was looking exceptionally beautiful with my Maybelline and MAC products. My hair was perfect, my smile radiant, and my wedding ring was on my right hand (after all that’s where Europeans wear it, and I was married in Germany). I stood there, full of confidence as if sprinkled with fresh confetti and glitter, cleared my throat, and said, “Hi, my name is Tina Glasneck, and I’m a ‘badge bunny.’ I’m so happy to be here.” I rambled on about my love of police officers and watched as the gazes of some of the officers changed from a casual “hello” to more of a “Hey. How you doin’?” The most embarrassing part was I had no idea what I was saying. I’m not even sure where I heard that phrase.
Fiona – Badge Bunny. It sounds cute! What did you think it meant?
Tina – Just that I was a super fan of law enforcement!
Fiona – Well, you got that right. Just maybe you didn’t want to express your enthusiasm quite that personally. By the way, for those of you who aren’t up on this lingo, a “badge bunny” is someone who likes to sexually gratify our fine officers, so Tina made quite the announcement that evening in her Maybelline lipstick.
Tina – A Badge Bunny – the officers protect while bunnies serve.
Fiona – Well said!
Tina – Oh stop. I knew I’d said something wrong. Imagine how I felt when I got home and Googled. (Thank you Urban Dictionary). I still had five more weeks of classes to attend, and I had to wear that Badge Bunny title the whole time. I wasn’t going to remind people by back peddling. It was possible they forgot (although I appreciate law enforcement, as a happily married woman, they are not on my radar).
Fiona – No – it’s not possible they forgot. You’re a very brave woman to go back. Kudos.
Tina – Yes, but I didn’t mean to tell every officer there that I was interested in bunny hopping over–
Fiona – You mean on
Tina – Fine, bunny hopping on them. Afterward, there were a couple of officers that moseyed on over to have a chat. I’m sure they were thinking, when I didn’t follow through with my “admiration”, that they just weren’t my type. I was wondering why everyone was being so nice to this new crime writer. After all, besides having my first book out, I’d not made a name for myself, yet.
Fiona– Oh, you made a name for yourself that night. How did those six weeks work out for you, B.B.?
Tina – Why are you laughing, Fiona? I got tons of contacts if I ever wanted to do any one-on-one research.
Fiona – Back to the bet. There we were (brewery fumes, I remind you) snorting over the idea of writing a mystery about a young woman who actually was a badge bunny. But an ethical one.
Tina – Ethics are darned important when it comes to being a badge bunny.
Fiona – That’s right. She has a code.
Tina – A man code.
Fiona – Shouldn’t we all? I mean, it’s good to have parameters.
Tina – In this case our heroine was named Roberta Jacqueline Reid. Her oldest and best friends call her Bobbi Jax, but she prefers to shorten it down to BJ. She believes that everyone who sought to visit her temple had better be single. She doesn’t do married men, engaged men, or men with girlfriends. Divorced men came with baggage that she didn’t want to carry. Nope. her guys needed to be decidedly single and out for a good time. Like she was. They also needed to be fit, and fine. But most of all, they needed to wear a navy-blue uniform and flash their badge at her.
Fiona – Yes, better to start by flashing a badge. Flashing anything else could get you arrested.
Tina – Which means you’d have to call the cops.
Fiona – Cops are fun.
Tina – Right, so maybe it wouldn’t be a completely horrible experience? BJ might even read it as an opportunity.
Fiona – Speaking of reading… We actually did it. We wrote the book. It’s called If You See Kay, Run and we had so much fun writing it, we wrote a second one, If You See Kay, Hide.
Tina – Let’s share the synopsis.
Fiona – Good idea.
Bobbi Jax, AKA BJ, reaches out to flick the cheek on the chick hiding in the bushes. Plastic. But oh so real looking. And creepy enough to interrupt her romp in nature with hot cop, Peter Harris. Creepy enough that BJ and her best friend, Kay decide to retrieve the discarded mannequin from the park that night, tie it to the roof of their car, and drive it back to the bar she manages. Creepy enough that it lights up social media like a beacon calling in the crazies. Who knew curiosity could put her in so much danger?
Quinn and Glasneck, high on the beer fumes from a signing party at a local brewery, decided to take a step away from their usual writing styles to put together a new adult (okay, anyone who wants a laugh) mystery in the style of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum novels – that is if Stephanie had a younger southern cousin, who ran a bar, and had a thing for police uniforms.
Tina – See we even mentioned beer fumes in the blurb.
Fiona – A good catalyst deserves recognition.
Tina – I like that blurb, I’d read it!
Fiona – Me, too.
FIONA QUINN writes the internationally bestselling Lynx Series including: Kindle Scout winning novel WEAKEST LYNX and the Kate Hamilton Mystery Series. In 2017, she debuts two new romantic suspense/mystery/thriller series – Uncommon Enemies (SilverHart Publishing) including novels WASP, RELIC, and DEADLOCK and Strike Force with JACK Be Quick and In Too DEEP. And now, she’s adding the Badge Bunny Booze Mystery Collection for the times when you need a drink and a laugh.
TINA GLASNECK writers gritty and suspenseful tales filled with murder, mystery, and mayhem, as well as speculative fiction (to balance it all out). In late 2017, she will follow up her well-received Spark Before Dying series, with the next installment in PERFECT KILLER. Learn more about Tina and connect with her at www.TinaGlasneck.com.
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*This interview was originally published on www.teacottagemysteries.com