The author of Sunset Beach (2009) and Beach Dreams (2008), Trish Perry lives in Northern Virginia with her hilarious teenaged son. She discovered her love of writing while earning a degree in Psychology. She switched career paths in 1997 and never looked back. Her debut novel, The Guy I’m Not Dating, placed second in the 2007 FHL Inspirational Readers’ Choice Contest, and her second novel, Too Good to Be True, finaled in the 2008 FHL IRCC, the GRW Maggie Awards, and LCRW’s Barclay Gold Awards.

You might not think there’s much call for sports-related novels out there, besides Dick Francis’ best-selling horse-racing murder mysteries. Not so! There are quite a few other successful authors of horse-racing murder mysteries. And most of the remaining sports are covered in fiction, as well: Mickey Rawlings’s baseball murder mysteries; Eddie Muller’s boxing murder mysteries; Charlotte Elkins’s golfing murder mysteries; Dave Klein’s football murder mysteries . . . are we seeing a pattern here? As a mother, I always accepted that sports could be rather dangerous, but how come everyone keeps killing all the fictional athletes, for goodness’ sake?

How about one of us fictionalizes a sports hero who not only gets one up on the bad guys, but also prevents them from committing anything so mussed up as murder? Really, is murder necessary? Can’t we all just get along? I mean, after giving the bad guys a good thrashing, can’t we all just get along?

Consider, for instance, a sports novel based on British grandma Janet Lane. Now stick with me, here. Not all grandmas are created equal. Yes, Janet is sicty-eight years old, but she’s no doddering old pensioner. Back in October Janet had just been to collect her pension money—all right, so she is a pensioner, but not doddering, by any means. Janet had around £100—or roughly $145—in her purse, as well as her cell phone, a gift for a friend, and a few other precious items. She sat on a park bench in Torquay, England, waiting for her friend and minding her sweet grandmotherly business.

Now here come our bad guys; three of them. Teenagers out for no good.

First they asked the helpless little old grandma for cigarettes, and then they grabbed her purse and ran. Well, as Janet reported later, she “had water rates to pay with that money.” So she did what any fantastic sixty-eight-year-old granny would do. She took off after the little hoods. And she overtook them! And get this—girlfriend was wearing sandals! Not exactly Usain Bolt’s golden Puma’s!

Not only is Janet not a wheezy old smoker. She’s got a little left over from her days as a cross-country champ fifty years ago. Rockin’ grandma grabbed the thug who had her purse. He was so shaken, he dropped her purse, wriggled free, and took off.

I’ve mentioned heroes in past installments here, but this lady has quite a few years on me and could definitely whip my slow-moving caboose many times over. She deserves her own novel!

Footnote: The police understand that Janet’s past athletic experience led her to endanger herself in pursuing the punks. They recommend that the public not follow her example. One can only agree with the police. It would be far better to take up archery or the shot put and save yourself the run!