Funny Bigfoot Mystery: NC-17 for Sasquatch Awareness Day

Maizie Albright's newest clients: Ages 15, 14 3/4, and 14 1/2. Grade 10 at Black Pine High School. Home of the Tree Toppers in Black Pine, Georgia. Also, home to Bigfoot. #Allegedly

That's how Chapter One of NC-17 opens, and I'd like to point out that the #Allegedly is doing a lot of work.

October 20th is Sasquatch Awareness Day, which feels like the right time to introduce you to the most Bigfoot-adjacent book I've written. NC-17 is Book 3 in my humorous PI mystery series, Maizie Albright Star Detective, and the closest thing I’ve written to a funny Bigfoot mystery. Maizie is a former child star trying to become a real private investigator in the North Georgia mountains. She is a lot of things. A Bigfoot believer is not one of them.

Unfortunately for her, everybody else in this book is.

The Case Nobody Will Take

Three teenagers run a YouTube channel called Bigfoot Trackers. Their producer, Chandler (not a teenager but a 20-something), left their campsite one night to check out the fence line of the new celebrity wellness retreat on the mountain and never came back. The police tracked him to where he'd parked, found his car gone, and decided he'd taken off. The kids are sure something worse happened. They've learned the hard way that their hobby does not help their credibility:

"As soon as we mention Bigfoot, everyone ignores us. Even though everyone online totally believes us."

So they end up in the office of a former teen TV detective, who feels for them, mostly.

The Theories

The Bigfoot Trackers do their homework. Fred, the group's resident theorist, has a hypothesis about why Sasquatch would hang around the old chicken farm where the Wellspring Center now stands:

"A perfect source of food, right there in his habitat. He might want retribution for humans tearing up the mountain to build stupid things like spas—"

Laci brings the data:

"During the chicken farm days, there was a noticeable uptake in sighting stories as well as other proof like footprints and sounds. The unique moans, whines, and grunts associated with Sasquatch."

And the whole crew suspects the fancy retreat is a front for something much worse. Maizie, who happens to be doing community service at that very retreat, gives this careful thought:

"Hard to believe the Wellspring Center to be an underground government facility meant for the capture of Bigfoot while pretending to be a celebrity wellness retreat. Which is why I didn't believe it."

Then a rooster crows somewhere in the distance:

"I shivered, wondering if the Bigfoot-chicken theory had some merit. Then gave myself a mental facepalm."

That's Maizie for you. A skeptic in principle. Easily rattled by poultry.

The Believer at Home

Maizie's six-year-old half-sister, Remi, has no such doubts. She's been watching Bigfoot Trackers, too (mostly for the ads, which feature a Bigfoot family selling mattresses in the forest), and she has a plan to catch him. Bigfoot, she figures, "can't be much bigger than the Tooth Fairy." Who, according to the movie, looks like Maizie's boss, Wyatt Nash. In a tutu.

Maizie tries reason:

"Bigfoot isn't real, Remi."

"I thought you wanted to help Fred, Mara, and Laci find Chandler."

I shrugged.

"Then you must believe in Bigfoot."

"I don't have to believe in Bigfoot to find Chandler."

Remi is not impressed:

"You ain't a believer, I don't need to tell you nothin'."

Six-year-olds are tough sources.

Follow the Hashtags

Every chapter of a Maizie book opens with hashtags. Read down NC-17's table of contents, and you can watch something like a slow-motion conversion happen:

• Chapter 3: #BigFootBelievers

• Chapter 9: #BelieveTheBelievers

• Chapter 13: #StalkingBigFootStalkers

• Chapter 32: #BigfootStalker #MakeMeABeliever

  
  

Somewhere in there, the trackers check their bait bucket and find Fred's sandwich and pretzels gone. In their place: "a thank you note. Some acorns and a wrapper." Maizie, holding the line:

"You also can't assume Bigfoot ate your food. It could have been hungry squirrels. Or a hiker."

I'll stop there. Where Maizie lands on the Bigfoot question is between her and the woods. I personally did research at Blue Ridge, Georgia's Bigfoot Museum. Not saying if I'm a believer, but the museum is pretty impressive!

Next Up in the Spooky Department

If spooky season in Black Pine is your kind of thing, the next Maizie leans all the way in. 21 GUNS, Book 10, takes place on a horror movie set with a cursed prop gun. On October 23rd, National Horror Movie Day, my VIP Readers get first look at its cover. (The cover, not the book. Maizie's still working the case, and so am I.) There's a giveaway for my VIP Readers that day too.

If you'd like in, sign up before the 23rd: https://www.larissareinhart.com/larissasreaders

Read NC-17, a Funny Bigfoot Mystery

NC-17 is Book 3 in the Maizie Albright Star Detective series: Hollywood chaos, small-town Georgia, a slow burn with her PI boss, and a missing YouTube producer who may or may not have met a Sasquatch. Check it out: books2read.com/NC17

New to Maizie? The series starts with 15 MINUTES, and it's free everywhere: books2read.com/15

Happy Sasquatch Awareness Day, y'all. If you leave a sandwich in the woods tonight, check for a thank-you note.

Happy Reading!

Larissa