Doug Thompson holds a copy of his new book.

Lehigh author Doug Thompson has finished and released his third book, a piece of non-fiction titled Murder on the Zephyr.

For older members of the community, the Zephyr was a train from Chicago to the west coast of California.

Thompson, a retired retailer for W.T. Grant & Co. years ago and owner of his own hardware store, didn’t start writing until a few years ago and now his wife says is what takes up his times.

She should know. She now edits his copy and tells him if she disagrees with something he has written.

“I may let him know that the person in question shouldn’t be doing this or that,” said his wife, Ada Thompson. Both are active members of the Lehigh Acres Congregational Church of Christ on Joel Blvd. And many years ago, Ada said she was a reporter for a small town newspaper, so she knows a little about writing, but she doesn’t write professionally.

“Who me? No, I don’t think so. That’s what Doug is into these days,” she laughed.

Doug Thompson loves mysteries and they seem to be cooking up all the time in his head and he puts them in his computer and follows an outline, which is subject to change from time to time, he admits. Some of that change could be at the urging of Ada.

“He does very well. I enjoy his writing. I think he has a real talent for it,” she said.

This third book follows two other mysteries. The first was The Curse of Dark Island (which Doug thinks would lend itself to a good movie). His second book was Satan’s Heritage.

This latest book was edited by a long-time friend of the Thompsons, Alice Scott of Lehigh who died within two weeks after editing the book.

“She was a very good editor,” Doug said. “She would catch things that I didn’t see. She had a lot of patience and that is why in addition to my family, I have dedicated the book to her.

Now you would think that an author surely knows how to type and use a computer.

Well Doug knows how to use the computer, but he can’t type. He just “pecks” when he has to make changes.

He uses a computerized voice activation program that does a pretty good job at it, he says.

“I talk into my computer’s microphone and the program types what I say.

“At first it didn’t seem to always recognize my words, but now it does a very good job,” Doug said. But his wife added that it doesn’t always punctuate like it should.

Doug doesn’t type just because he never learn to type with all of his fingers. It also has to do with an eye disease that is slowly getting worse.

Thompson has Mascular Degeneration which means he could lose his eyesight. He admits to be at least 80 but his mind is sharp and he loves the intrigue that he often drops into his stories.

“He uses some of those bad words for some of his characters and he likes to put some sex in his stories,” Ada laughed. “He’s the writer, not me. He knows what he is doing, but he doesn’t have to do too much of that,” she laughed.

With a twinkle in his eyes, while wearing tube to give him oxygen, he smiles and says sometimes you just have to write those things to make the book more interesting. Ada looks at him and just laughs.

In his own promotion of the book, Thompson writes: “The murder of a free-lance investigator aboard a crack Chicago to California train might have been written off and forgotten, except for the involvement of a quasi-secret group when the train reaches the yard at Salt Lake city – a group funded by a one-star general with the U.S. Army.

“A tangled trail of murder and mayhem is precipitated when a persistent Mexican/Irish homicide detective is ordered to back off and accept the version arranged by two federal officers from Washington, D.C. his neatly structure life is changed forever when he is initiated into a world of biotechnological research by a reporter from Boston. The intrigue continues, but to get more information, you’ll have to buy the book.

It sells for $15 and you can get a copy by calling Thompson at 369-0393. They’re also available at some book stores and on the Internet, but if you buy it from him, he makes a little more on it, his wife said.

“He isn’t getting rich writing books, that’s for sure,” said his wife. She explained the cost of printing and what he gets from the book.

“You have to love to write cause you aren’t going to get rich in this business,” she said. “Not unless you sell hundreds of thousands or millions of books.”

“It’s something he enjoys and I encourage him to write,” she laughed.

Doug Thompson remembers way back when he wrote short stories for his children and later for his grandchildren. Ada told her husband that he should publish them but because they do not now an illustrator and as Doug puts it, “you gotta have an illustrator for children’s books, he just hasn’t done anything about it.

But his grandchildren and great grandchildren get copies of those works. Between Doug and Ada, they have nine grown children between them, 17 grandchildren and eight great grandchildren.

“He used to enjoy playing golf, but his eyes brought an end to that, so now what we get are books on murder, intrigue and sex,” Ada laughed. “He enjoys it and that is what’s important.”

Doug will be signing books this month at the BB&T Bank (formerly Colonial Bank on Homestead Rd.) and there will be an announcement of the time and date.

And he plans book signings at other sites in the future. To learn more about Thompson and his books, you can go online to: douglasthompson.net. There. you’ll see a good photograph of him and his wife and information on his books and what people think of them.

Today, the movies and TV have stories about vampires. Guess what. That’s what Doug is thinking about penning his next book about.

“I’ve got it started. It’s about vampires,” he said. But that is all he will say. We’ll just have to wait for the next book, expect it out sometime early next year.