The Water is Full of Hazards – Fortunately Ike is in the Lifeguard Chair

There is one thing that every living organism on the planet needs to stay alive.

Water.

Without water our planet would quite literally die – taking all of us with it.

75% of the human body – and 90% of human blood – is water.

So, you get the picture…water is important.

So how ironic is it that water – the one thing we can’t live without – is actually being used to slowly kill the planet?

Don’t get me wrong…the water itself isn’t doing anything wrong. It’s us – the human population – that are doing the damage with water.

Bottled water to be specific.

In 1978 the United States consumed about 415 million gallons of bottled water

In 2001 we consumed 5.4 billion gallons.

By 2006 the number jumped to 8.3 billion gallons – for which the U.S. consumers shelled out $11 billion.

…but bottled water is healthier than tap water.

…bottled water tastes better.

…it’s more convenient.

If you believe any, or all, of those things, you have been duped by the multi-billion dollar bottled water industry.

I’m sorry. I don’t mean to offend you – but it’s true.

The water in your Evian bottle has no more health benefits than the water from your tap. If your tap water tastes “funny” you should understand that it’s because of the government mandated procedures which eliminate any impurities – procedures the bottling plants are not required to follow. Buy a filter pitcher and you’ll get the same taste. As for convenience – buy a reusable water bottle and fill it from your pitcher.

To make matters worse – the amount of groundwater pumping done to fill those cute little bottles causes unseen damage by lowering the levels of lakes, ponds and streams…which affects the wildlife who rely on them for life…which in turn affects us humans.

Finally – the bottles themselves. Probably the worst part of the equation.

Americans buy approximately 28 billion bottles of water per year.

28 Billion.

The manufacturing process for these bottles requires 45-50 million barrels of oil.

Think about that the next time you complain about the price of gas.

It is estimated that 80% of the bottles we use end up in landfills…that’s a cheerful little tidbit.

For the most part, the bottled water industry is a self-regulated industry raking in billions and billions of dollars every year and doing irreversible harm to the planet, because they have convinced Americans of the (false) value of their product.

Are you still with me?

Good – because there’s good news.

Ike is on the job.

Okay – I admit it…I used all those facts (and they are all true facts) about bottled water as a preamble to talk about one of my novels.

It’s called Water Hazard (see what I did there?).

In the story, a Florida contractor is illegally pumping groundwater and selling it to bottled water companies, making a ton of money…but in an attempt to keep his operation a secret he resorts to kidnapping and murder.

Unfortunately, he didn’t know he was about to cross paths with Ike.

When the ex-Navy SEAL, with a penchant for bending the rules, learns that his best friend is in some pretty hot water, he dives headlong into a whirlpool of greed, corruption and ecological sabotage to help.

Water Hazard has all of the fast-paced action, great characters, humor and beautiful Flagler Beach settings that my other books have, and it also offers a glimpse into the murky side of the bottled water industry.

Click here to read the first chapter for free.

So now that summer is here—grab your favorite ice-cold beverage (as long as it’s not bottled water!) and relax with a great beach read that will grab you from the first page and keep you locked in until the last.

Download Water Hazard for only$2.99 here.

If you’d like a signed paperback version send me an email at blindoggbooks@gmail.com and I’ll give you the details.

 

As always – thank you for reading

My Version of the Twilight Zone

This is a strange post—so strange that I’m not even sure where to begin.

I guess it started about two weeks ago…

I was working on my next novel Unfinished Business and the scene I was writing involved my antagonist, a shady nightclub owner named Mike McMahon, and one of my protagonists, a detective named Dave Steere. In the scene the two men are having a discussion and in the course of the conversation it is revealed that they have a history that goes beyond “cop and robber”. In fact it goes all the way back to their youth.

This is a good time to talk about names…

Obviously every character in a novel needs a name and naturally those names must be chosen by the author.

I can’t speak for other authors, but I think I spend more time than needed in choosing names for my characters. There are a bunch of criteria to go by (time period, nationality, ease of pronunciation, etc) and then it must be a name that I am happy with.

More times than not I try to use names that I will remember with little or no effort and also ones that will help me identify my character . It’s quite common for me to pick the name of an old friend or co-worker who fits the general description of the character in order for me to keep physical details straight – ditto with personality traits.

Okay – back to my work in progress…

In the aforementioned scene between Mike McMahon (the name of a guy I knew in high school) and Dave Steere (a close friend from college) I had originally intended their historic connection to involve a girl—so the scene was written with a girl whose affections the two had competed for in high school. Since the girl would play no significant role in the book I decided to use a name from my own high school days…that of a girl I knew for a short period of time, but whom I lost contact with thereafter.

Her name was Mary Ellen Henry.

She was an attractive girl with a big smile and the kind of laugh that makes you smile when you hear it. We met through a mutual friend (whose name will probably appear in a future novel) and we got along very well. I was a sophomore and for the entire year Mary Ellen and I were pretty close friends. After that year I never saw her again. I never knew what happened to her either…I suspected she moved away.

Back to the book…

After writing the scene where McMahon and Steere discuss their competition for Mary Ellen’s attention I moved on in the story. As the story progressed I realized that this struggle over a high school romance just wasn’t enough…so I went back, deleted the scene and rewrote it with something a little more intense.

In so doing, Mary Ellen Henry was removed from the story.

That was the day before yesterday (Tuesday, Nov 13).

Last night (Wednesday Nov. 14) I was writing and hanging out on facebook when I saw a post form another old friend from the neighborhood – I literally stopped and said “Holy shit” aloud when I read it.

He had posted the announcement of Mary Ellen Henry’s death.

I really wish this was one of those clever stories that writers love to create with Rod Serling-esque twists…but it isn’t.

It would be weird enough if that were the end of it…but if you read my last blog entry (My Next Book – I Hope it isn’t Dead to You) you remember that Unfinished Business is a bit of a Stephen King type story with the predominant theme of the book dealing with the final thoughts of the dead.

As I said in the beginning – I feel very strangely about this.

Sometimes things happen that you just can’t explain – and this is surely one of them.

Coincidence?

Most likely…but who am I to say?

I just write books…

As always – thank you for reading and Rest in Peace Mary Ellen