When I was a teenager, I wanted to be Girl Keanu Reeves. I didn’t really want to be Girl Keanu Reeves so much as I wanted to be Girl Johnny Utah, rookie FBI agent in Point Break or Girl LAPD officer Jack Traven in Speed. My father, the police chief (and mayor) in my hometown of Pine Apple, Alabama, taught me how to shoot a gun when I was eight-years old, it stuck, and I grew up dreaming of shootouts, hostage crises, and stalking serial killers instead of picket fences, weddings, and baby strollers. All my crime-fighting dreams came true when I landed a job on an elite undercover security team at the Bellissimo Resort and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi.
None of my crime-fighting dreams came true when I landed a job on an elite undercover security team at the Bellissimo Resort and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi.
That’s not to say that there isn’t the occasional element of danger in my work. There has been, there is, and there will be, because the Bellissimo isn’t a little place. It’s smack-dab on the beach, with 1600-plus guest rooms, twelve restaurants, 75,000 square feet of gaming, plus liquor and money everywhere. So things happen. But most of the things that happen are far from major crimes.
A few weeks ago, a guy chartered a deep-sea fishing boat, then afterward, he smuggled four live baby sharks into his Bellissimo guest room Jacuzzi tub. When he sobered up and checked out the next morning, he’d forgotten to pack his baby sharks, and I had to get them back in the Gulf. There was nothing baby about them—they had whiskers—and there was screaming.
A few days later, we had a runaway bride. She ran out of her wedding venue, the Riviera Room, through the casino, her cathedral-length veil flying behind her. The bow of her chiffon wedding dress caught on a Lucky Monkey Triple Times Pay slot machine, and the whole thing ripped off her and landed across two Tarzan and Jane Jungle Bonus slot machines. She kept going, screaming her lungs out (“Save me! Somebody save me!”) in her lace undies, organza veil, and six-inch heels. By then the entire wedding party was chasing her, led by her would-be mother-in-law (trash mouth on that one), and before it was over, one of the bridesmaids tossed ME into the middle of a packed-out craps table. That night I found a $100 casino chip in my Tory Burch Caroline flats.
I spend just as much time chasing after casino patrons’ juvenilely delinquent kids down as I do chasing purse snatchers and dice sliders. Gamblers check into the hotel, then wag their fingers at their rotten offspring. “You be good. And stay out of that mini bar.” Then the parents hit the casino and forget about the teenage terrors upstairs reenacting every scene of Jackass 3.5. A few weeks ago, two thirteen-year-old brats dumped a half-gallon of Louisiana Fire Sauce into the holding bin of the ice dispenser at the Plethora Buffet’s self-serve fountain-drink line. A week later, a kid absconded with an abandoned motorized wheelchair, then drove it into the swimming pool. The very next day, two teenagers stuffed a small child through the opening at the top of the Claw Crane game in the kiddie arcade, put tokens in, snagged the child by the seat of his pants with the metal claw, and left him dangling inside the game. It’s almost worse when the parents ban the rotten kids to the hotel rooms. They make 300-decibel wake-up calls all over the building at two in the morning, and order porn on the television the parents refuse to pay for because their little angels “would never do that.” My advice to parents: Check your teenager’s luggage before you come to the Bellissimo. There is no reason for them to bring industrial air horns, 400 off-brand condoms (doorknob décor), or bottle rockets.
Never a dull moment, and who knows? Maybe we’ll have a hostage crisis one day, but when it happens, it’ll probably be me taken hostage.
Gretchen is giving away one (1) copy of DOUBLE WHAMMY. Leave a comment to be included in the giveaway. The book will be shipped directly from the author. Contest ends May 16 and US entries only.
You can read more about Davis in Double Whammy, the first book in the new “Davis Way” mystery series.
Meet the author
Gretchen Archer is a Tennessee housewife who began writing when her daughters, seeking higher educations, left her. She lives on Lookout Mountain with her husband, son, and a Yorkie named Bently. Double Whammy is her first Davis Way mystery. Visit Gretchen at www.gretchenarcher.com
Books are available at retail and online booksellers.
Well, if the book is half as interesting as the author’s tease above, I’m in! I was laughing all the way through. This sounds like a perfect beach read, light and funny, with lots of zany action.
Too funny. Count me in! Dee
The book sounds wonderful, would love to win it and read it.
Thanks, girls! Go get a copy before the casino industry gets wind of Double Whammy, has a fit, then locks me in a casino vault, at which point I’ll have to start writing senior-citizen erotica.
Sounds like a great read! Thanks for the heads up.
Double Whammy looks like a great read! Davis’ adventures already sound like a lot of fun. Would love to win, thanks for the info!
Too cute, Gretchen. I love Davis Way and LOVED Double Whammy. While I read it, I had a premonition of your success. DW is so clever, so funny, and so entertaining. I’m such a fan. Congrats on your debut release!
Sounds like a fun time! Thanks for the chance to win.
This looks like a good book. Thank you for the chance to win
I would love to reed Double Whammy!
Undercover security at a casino opens up all sorts of crazy possibilities. This sounds like a fun read. Thanks for the introduction. I’ve already added it to my book list!
Stop! You’re all making my head spin! Thanks for stopping by Dru’s, thanks for the kind words about Double Whammy, and…WHEE!!!
This book sounds really good, can’t wait to read it 🙂
I enjoy discovering new authors. This book sounds like quite the romp. What a great cover.
I LOVE southern cozies!
I like the sounds of this book—lots of crazy hotel guest–lots of action. Please enter me in the drawing.
suefarrell.farrell@gmail.com
Gretchen writes a great story, with entertaining characters, and with lots of interesting incidents and with the humor that makes you want to keep reading and reading. I find that she makes me laugh just like I do when I read Janet Evanovich’s “Numbered” books and that is a GREAT thing. We all love a really good book and if that book has an intriguing story along with humor and the ability to relate to a character, that is a hugely successful book to me. I cannot wait to read any and all of Gretchen’s books in this series if they will be anything like her debut novel. GGG-Great Going Gretchen.
Cynthia
Love this, Gretchen. Happy release day! Loved Double Whammy so, so much. Laugh out loud funny, and I never knew what Davis would do next!
I haven’t read a book taking place in Mississippi for a very long time. I’d like to remedy that. I could also use a good LOL. Please sign me up. Thanks. judydee22002@yahoo.com
Looks great!
I am blushing all over the place. Such sweet words. It makes me want to go back and read Double Whammy. It does sound good! I just finihsed the sequel, Double Dip (Henery Press, January, 2014), and poor Double Whammy hasn’t been on the front burner until TODAY! My release day! Thanks to each and every one of you for sharing it with me, I hope you all win, and thanks, especially, to you, Dru, for having me!
Gretchen
Double Whammy is a GREAT book. And this is a fabulous day in the life, G! I’d love to see some teenagers in a future Davis Way book. 🙂
You know, even what Davis calls a boring day sounds pretty exciting to me. And it can’t be a ll mischief and misdemeanors. I’m betting something big crops up. Please enter my name in the draw.
This sounds hilarious! I would love to win it and read it!
I like fun reads and this sounds like one I would really enjoy!
Sounds like a great book.
Oh, my! This sounds like a rip-roaring adventure! I grew up in a small Alabama town & lived in Biloxi for 3 years (pre-casinos – during Hurricane Camille days) so I am sure that this book will right up my alley! Could this be as much fun as the Anne George books?
LynDee, carlscott, Jan, Carol M, Kiki, and Jan, thanks so much for stopping by Dru’s and taking a minute to comment. My writer friends and I, me at the top of the list, wring our hands about guest-blog writing, mostly because we’re fiction writers! Our brains have characters up there fighting for air time, not serious things like setting, dialogue tags, and the economy as it relates to publishing. (What everyone wants us to blog about.) So being a guest on Dru’s Musings is not only right up our alleys, it’s an HONOR, and it’s fun! I had a ball being a guest on Dru’s. Thanks for stopping by, and I really hope you all win a copy of Double Whammy. If you don’t win, just bombard Dru with requests. “Dru. Please. Please, Dru?”
Happy reading, everyone!
Love finding new authors. Adding this one to my tbr pile. Thanks for the giveaway! 🙂
This seems interesting. I’ll add this to my to read list.
Sounds different and interesting. At first I thought it took place in Las Vegas, maybe because of the slot machine on the cover. We have a casino here in Toledo but I haven’t been there yet. I did go to the M.G.M. Grand in Detroit about 11 years ago.
I can’t wait to read this book. It sounds really funny, and I want to check into this author. I would love to win this book, and thank you for the contest.
My Mom loved playing the ‘slots’.
wfnren(at)aol(dot)com
Stacie, Edith, Michelle, Debra, and Wendy, thanks for taking the time for A Day in the Life of Davis Way at Dru’s. Michelle, go to the casino. Wendy, you would love it too! Good luck everyone!
Thanks Gretchen for introducing us to Davis. Having read Double Whammy, I can’t wait for the next book in the series.
Contest is closed, but comments are always welcome