In Ghost Light, the new Nathan Active mystery, Nathan solves a murder case with help from an Alaska Native grandmother suffering from dementia. Her name is Tommie Leokuk, and there’s a reason for that.

The reason is Tommy Leonhard, to whom Ghost Light is dedicated.

Tommy Leonhard was an old family friend whom I met twenty or so years ago when she was on a bowling team with my parents in rural Tennessee. Somehow, we fell into a pen-pal relationship and exchanged letters by snail mail.

Along the way, she became a fervent fan of the Nathan Active books.

Because of her age, I’d send her a printed manuscript the minute each new first draft was finished.

After reading The Big Empty, the predecessor of Ghost Light, Tommy suggested I do a story about an old woman who finds a body walled up in a house.

I decided that was a pretty good idea, and adapted it to the far north by having an expertly dismembered woman’s body turn up in the ice cellar of an abandoned Inupiat Eskimo fish camp.

Since the idea came to me from Tommy Leonhard, I named the old lady in the book Tommie Leokuk. Tommy Leonhard was so tickled by this that she started signing her letters to me “Tommy Leokuk.”

Tommy—the real one—passed away last year at the age of 98, I’m sorry to report, but not before I got a chance to send her the manuscript of Ghost Light. She got to see for herself that it was dedicated to her.

My good friend Tommy Leonhard is gone now and I miss her every day. But her spirit lives on in Ghost Light. I feel like I can sense her presence there and see that merry smile of hers every time I open it.

If you're interested in the book that came from her suggestion, here's the Amazon link:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09...

And if you'd like to see a picture of Tommy Leonhard, here's a link to my Facebook post about her:

https://www.facebook.com/StansBooks/p...