Next week, Undercover Babymoon, the fourth installment of the Unde(a)feated Detective Series, will cast off into the book world! Today, I’m continuing a series of character spotlights—in this case, passenger spotlights—to acquaint readers with special characters and highlight the inspiration behind them. The Garrets, featured last week, add a lot of humor to the Avery family’s dinner table on their cruise. Tula and Stewart Hawkins enhance the lively atmosphere further, probably without realizing it.
The couple’s background is a bit of a mystery to their fellow passengers. Albeit kind, Stewart seems apt to exaggerate, and if he refrains from boasting about his long list of supposed accomplishments, his wife and biggest fan is more than happy to brag about them. Among his illustrious resume is working for the FBI, being considered for a Nobel Peace Prize, and inventing the Internet. For as talented as he alleges to be, he’s also just as unfortunate, with every achievement being stripped from him by some glitch or debacle.
Stewart, in particular, was fun to put on the page, considering he’s been brewing in my mind for a very long time. He’s inspired by a legend, if you will, from my high school days. For the sake of preserving relative anonymity, I’ll refrain from defining his position, but he acquired a reputation for sharing a variety of farfetched stories about his past.
Of course, telling such tales to teenaged students only made him subject to his anecdotes being even more exaggerated through the rumor mill. Some of my rowdier classmates teased him about his claims, and the straight face he maintained through it all did nothing but encourage them. To this day, I still can’t determine if he was the ultimate deadpan comedian, the most talented man who was robbed of his place in the history books…or if he just had a knack for convincing himself of his adventurous life!
Admittedly, I didn’t hear a lot of his supposed allegations first-hand. I don’t even know what kind of fanciful pursuits he may be working on now. However, if he ever claimed to have inspired a character in a mystery novel, he’d actually be telling the truth!
To give you an idea of the shenanigans you can anticipate from this memorable couple, here’s another postcard from their travels, addressed to their estranged daughter, which is not a part of the book.
KarinaBartow.com 
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