My patrol partner in the Fallingbrook Police Department is Hooligan Houlihan. He won’t tell us his real first name. My friends and I are determined to find out what it is, someday.

Hooligan and I were happy to work on the Fourth of July, partly because we love seeing excited kids. First, we were supposed to drive the police cruiser leading the Fallingbrook Fabulous Fourth Festivities parade. I’m senior to Hooligan in the department. I usually drive.

Unfortunately, things started going wrong even before the parade started. I ended up driving a convertible and Hooligan got to drive our cruiser. Even though I must have looked odd wearing my uniform and sitting at a wheel of a tiny convertible, I’m sure that the kids watching the parade didn’t mind that some of the people were not in and on the vehicles originally assigned to them.

After the parade, Hooligan and I wandered through the village square during the community picnic. My two best friends since junior high were also there. Samantha is an Emergency Medical Technician and was stationed nearby with an ambulance. Emily, who owns a donut and coffee shop, Deputy Donut, with Fallingbrook’s former police chief, handed out free donuts at the picnic. As far as everyone could tell, the picnic went fine.

At the fireworks that evening, Hooligan and I were still on duty, and so were Samantha and another of our friends, Fallingbrook’s fire chief, Scott. We sat on a blanket near our emergency vehicles. Hooligan and Samantha sat together, I was beside them, and Scott sat between Emily and me.

Samantha, Emily, and I can’t help looking for men we think would be perfect matches for one another. Emily and I had decided that Samantha and Hooligan would be great together, and it seems like Samantha and Hooligan are beginning to agree. I think Scott is adorable. I wish he thought the same of me. Emily refuses to admit that she likes another of our friends, Detective Brent Fyne. He was on duty that night and couldn’t join us. Unlike first responders, detectives don’t attend events just in case they might be needed. The other five of us ate donuts and other snacks, drank non-alcoholic beverages, and had a great time together.

Near the end of the fireworks, everything went horribly wrong.

Of the five of us, Emily was closest and had the best view of the tragedy, and of course it was Emily who ended up being questioned by Brent and the detective from the Wisconsin Division of Investigation.

To make matters worse, someone snapped a picture of me looking very stern and holding Emily by the wrist. I couldn’t help looking stern. I suspected that Emily had been injured, and I was checking her pulse. But when the picture was published in the Fallingbrook News, people jumped to the conclusion that I was arresting Emily or restraining her.

Here’s the problem with Emily—she’s too curious and too dedicated to helping others. Brent and I tell her that if she wants to solve crimes, she should join the police department and learn how to do it properly with all the equipment and backup she needs.

She claims she doesn’t mean to interfere and doesn’t mean to investigate, but if she thinks she can obtain simple, innocent answers, she barges ahead and ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time and nearly gets herself killed. So far, she has always managed to rescue herself before we arrive, but what if she couldn’t, and what if we couldn’t get there in time to save her?

I know, I know. I worry too much. Maybe if Emily became a police officer I would worry about her less. No, I guess I wouldn’t. I care about all of my friends and I don’t want anyone or anything to harm them.

My friends feel that way about me, too, but I tell them I’m well trained and careful.

Besides, I love what I do. I can no more hunker down in a safe place than . . . than Emily can.

You can read more about Misty and her friends in Jealousy Filled Donuts, the third book in the “Deputy Donut” cozy mystery series, coming August 27, 2019.

When a firecracker becomes a murder weapon, Emily Westhill pursues a killer with a short fuse . . .

It is a truth universally acknowledged—cops and donuts go together. Exhibit A: Deputy Donut Café, owned and operated by detective’s widow Emily Westhill and her father-in-law, the retired police chief of Fallingbrook, Wisconsin. Named after Emily’s adored and adorable tabby, the donut shop is a favorite among cops, firemen, and EMTs, as well as tourists and townspeople. So when Fallingbrook needs donuts for their Fourth of July picnic, Emily’s shop gets deputized.

But a twisted killer has found another use for Emily’s treats. At the picnic, a firecracker is hidden in a stack of raspberry-filled donuts and aimed at the unwitting queen of the festivities. When it explodes, she is killed. Having her jelly donuts involved puts Emily in a sticky situation, and when a shady shutterbug tries to frame her with incriminating photos, she finds herself in quite a jam. To preserve her freedom and her shop’s reputation, Emily needs to solve this case—before the fuse-lighting felon goes off again . . .

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About the author
Ginger Bolton writes the Deputy Donut mystery series—coffee, donuts, cops, danger, and one curious cat . . . Jealousy Filled Donuts is the third in the series after Survival of the Fritters and Goodbye Cruller World. When Ginger isn’t writing or reading, she’s crocheting, knitting, sewing, walking her two rescue dogs and generally causing trouble. She’s also fond of donuts, coffee, and cafés were folks gather to enjoy those tasty treats and one another’s company. As Janet Bolin, Ginger wrote the Threadville Mysteries—murder and mayhem in a village of crafty shops.

For more information about Ginger and her books, visit her on Facebook.

All comments are welcomed.