Thank You, Brad

It all started with a friend named Brad.

Matt and I had this really good friend named Brad. He was an actor. He was a new father. He was a weird and funny guy. Then, one day, we got an email from his wife that he was dead. They were on vacation and he dropped dead of sudden cardiac arrest. He was only 49.

I had just turned 52 that year and had been having my own heart problems for a couple years. Put all that together and Brad’s completely unexpected death hit us all hard. Hard. Hard. Hard.

It was horrible, but it turned out to be the catalyst that got me to quit my day job and hunker down and return to my long-form writing (novels) that I had been putting off until “the right time.” Who knew when that would happen? Who knew if I would be the next to drop dead from heart issues? I didn’t and I wasn’t going to wait to find out.

So now, nearly four years since his death, I have Brad to thank for getting me off my butt. I had open-heart surgery, Matt and I celebrated our twentieth year together and I just published my eleventh (!) book.

Because of what he did for me, I dedicated my novel “Blackmail at Wrigley Field” to him. I decided it was time to thank him publicly.

Smooth sailing, Major Matt Mason. Second star to the right.