More decades ago than I like to mention, I did babysitting at a rate of twenty-five cents an hour, often for neighbors whose houses were within walking distance of ours.  One of those families was the Coxs, three homes away.  They had two kids—Normie, who was in my younger brother’s class, and a girl whose name I can’t remember—Vicki maybe?

This was back in  “the old days” when Bisbee had three whole TV channels.  The nighttime news came on at ten PM followed by the “late movie” which started at 10:30. By the way, the movies were generally sponsored by either Sam Levitz Furniture or Aqua Net Hair Spray. I never bought any furniture from Sam Levitz, but I used my share of Aqua Net.  That stuff helped create the iron-maiden hairdos of the fifties and sixties.  It was probably also harmful to the environment.

One babysitting night, knowing my clients would be late, I plucked a book, The Foxes of Harrow, off their bookshelf during the news.  I had just started reading it when the late movie came on—The Foxes of Harrow. That coincidence was just too weird.  I turned off the movie, put the book back on the shelf, and just sat there waiting until Mr. And Mrs. Cox got back home.  By the way, I just Googled The Foxes of Harrow.  The movie came out in 1947 and starred Rex Harrison.  Now, all these years later, I’m sorry I didn’t watch it, but that’s another story. Maybe it’ll show up on TCM!

Back to the present.  I can’t read other people’s books when I’m writing one of my own.  Now, with Before the Trail Goes Cold in the hands of my editors, I’m on vacation and for me, vacations are for reading.  In the past week, I’ve read two books written by other people and started a third.  The first was Fighting Edge, Margaret Mizushima’s latest police procedural featuring Mattie Walker, a K-9 handler in small town Colorado.  Next came All in a MOMent, a fascinating memoir by Mallina Wilson. (More about that in an upcoming post.) And then, ready to do some reading for pleasure, I turned to the books in Bill’s Kindle Library.

While I’m writing—which is most of the time—he’s either watching TV or reading books.  Over the years he’s built up quite a collection, and since our reading tastes are similar, if he likes a particular book or author, chances are I will, too.

So when I opened his Kindle Library, one of the first sets of books that surfaced was a series written by a name-brand mystery writer.  The book I just finished writing is set in 2024.  One of the characters in the book checks out a volume from Bisbee’s Copper Queen Library, and since he only reads mysteries, while I was writing the story, I checked new mystery releases from about that time and chose that particular book as the one my fictional character chooses.  

I’ve been so busy writing during the course of the last couple of years, I hadn’t read it before, either.  As a consequence that’s the book I chose for my first vacation read.

Once I opened, however, I hit my first Foxes of Harrow roadblock.  One of the main characters turned out to be headed for the SAME building that plays an important part in Before the Trail Goes Cold. A few pages (Make that scrolls!) later, I hit the second.  One of the characters in the other author’s book is dealing with issues similar to those of one of the main characters in mine.  That’s when I stopped reading, COLD!  

Before the Trail Goes Cold is due out in the fall of 2027.  In the real world that seems like a long time.  In terms of publishing, it’s barely the blink of an eyes.  So once my book comes out and when what you’re reading sounds vaguely familiar, please understand that you’ve probably already read that other author’s book.

This is my official notification to the world: Up to this very moment on October 5, 2026, I have never read that other book, but I’m about to.  Because that’s what vacations have always been for me—a time for reading for pleasure, and at this point, I’m too set in my ways to stop doing that now.