When you get older, I didn’t say old mind you, just older, people expect you to act a certain way. I can proudly say that I don’t act my age. I just turned sixty, but feel like I am still forty, okay maybe forty-five. I am happily divorced and enjoy my life as it is.

My typical day starts before the sun rises. Not by choice, but by cat. Zumbutt, my all black rescue, feline friend runs the house, and he wants his breakfast by five a.m. Other than his early eating habits and his enjoyment of climbing my curtains, he is a wonderful companion that I love dearly.

Three days a week I volunteer at the Sechuette Animal Hospital here in town. I man the front desk, answering the phone and checking my furry patients in and out for their appointments. I tend to get emotionally attached to many of the older and abandoned cats and take them home to foster until I can find a permanent home for them. Luckily, Zumbutt doesn’t pay much attention to the frequent guests. I think he has figured out that they will not be staying permanently and puts up with interruptions in his ‘I’m the king of the castle life’.

I never had children of my own, so my niece Kami is my world. We have a special bond as her mother left when she was young, and I stepped in as a surrogate mom while Kami grew up. Many afternoons have been spent together shopping and antique hunting.

On my days off from work, I hang out with my best friend June. We have been friends since elementary school and enjoy many of the same things. Food, wine, lots of wine, and bingo top the list of our favorite ways to pass the time.

We play bingo four nights a week and twice on Sunday. The game used to be for grandmas, but it has now become popular for people of all ages, eighteen and up. It is a wonderful way to socialize and stay in touch with the other locals in town. Kami is now hooked on the game and the days that I work she picks up June and gets to the hall early to save our lucky seats.

You might say I have the normal life of a sixty-year-old, semi-retired person in a small town, but every once in a while, a good mystery will show it’s face and I can’t help but get involved. I love Jessica Fletcher and do fancy myself a version of her.

Sheriff Morse has told me time after time to keep my nose out of things, but that is never going to happen. I am nosy by nature and will never change. Even though we butt heads constantly, we hold the utmost respect for each other.

June and I have agreed to do some traveling starting in the Spring. Our first venture is going to be a bingo cruise to nowhere. Three days straight out into the ocean and then three days back, all the while playing bingo and eating some the best cuisine offered. I just hope that I don’t get seasick having never been on a boat before.

The beginning of the summer, I have booked a long weekend at a vineyard for three glorious days of wine testing. June has no idea as it will be an early birthday present for her.

Until then, I will be content to eat at the local hangouts and sit in my lucky seat to up my chances of yelling bingo.

Most nights I get home from bingo around ten. After making sure that Zumbutt still has dry food in his dish as he only gets wet food in the morning, I hop into the shower, get into my warm fuzzy robe and slippers and settle in to watch my favorite Cabot Cove detective solve a new murder on television.

Most of my days are ho-hum, but occasionally, I get lucky and a mystery falls at my feet which adds some spice and excitement to my life. After all, I am the queen of feisty and when I am on the trail of a killer, they will never get away.

Death by Dauber is the first book in the NEW “Thelma and June’s Mystery Adventures” cozy mystery series, released July 2020.

When Agatha Tram, a wealthy, local newspaper owner is found unconscious in a bathroom stall with dauber circles covering her face, everyone attending bingo that night is suspect. After her death, the staff at her newspaper start to vanish, one by one.

Thelma Frost, the front desk receptionist at the local animal hospital must do her best to find the killer as her niece Kami works at the paper and she doesn’t want her to be the next one to disappear. A twenty-five-year-old kidnapping case is re-opened, local’s longtime secrets are revealed, and small-town lies are uncovered. Bingo is not just your grandmother’s game anymore.

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About the author
Donna Walo Clancy lives on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. She has three grown children and one sassy Papillon named Zumiez. Writing, painting, and walking the beaches with her metal detector off season are her favorite ways to pass the time. Flea markets and yard sales can hold her attention for hours.

Sixty-one and happily divorced for over thirty years, she has worked the last fourteen summers as a cook at the Wellfleet drive-in and flea market. She uses her winters off for writing. Cozy mysteries are her favorite tales to tell along with a yearly Christmas release.

She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Mystery Writers New England Chapter, Sisters in Crime, Sisters in Crime New England Chapter, Sisters in Crime Guppies and The Cape Cod Writers Association.

All comments are welcomed.