A Writer's Peril by Nancy L. Eady

I have a problem – I need to kill someone. I not only need to kill someone, but I must do it in a very specific way. The murder must be done with poison via something dissolvable in liquid and administered via the route of getting hair colored at the salon. I have been casting around in my mind for various options, and nicotine is a possible solution to the problem. Of course, before I can select nicotine as the instrument of choice, I will have to confirm that it is 1) dissolvable, 2) hard (but not impossible) to detect and 3) uncommon. I also need to be sure that enough of the darn stuff can get into a human body to cause death if done via hair coloring, and that it will not travel through latex or rubber gloves.

Fortunately, the person I must kill is fictional, and truth be told, it’s not really me that’s going to do the killing but a yet-to-be named woman who is the sister of the deceased woman whose husband then married, horror of horrors, a younger woman. The husband is going to bite the dust first, though, through the manipulation of his heart medicine into a dose stronger than needed. I’m still working through the what, why and how to’s of that one, as well.

As most of the American population these days, my chief resource tool is my computer, particularly Google. It wouldn’t bother me except for my vague suspicion that someone somewhere is monitoring every question I throw out to Google. A large number of queries about nicotine poisoning might raise a few eyebrows at any surveilling government agency. And heaven help me if anyone I know suddenly drops dead from nicotine poisoning!  How hard will that be to explain to any investigating authorities? 

I know for a fact that Google at least monitors my activity, because the ads I receive on various web sites are related to things I have already researched. Which is the other problem with a cluster of questions around one specific topic. I don’t want to receive a jillion advertisements about poisons, cigarettes or vapes as a result of my research. I’m not interested in buying any of them. On the other hand, if all the ads I see are for things I don’t want to buy, I should save a lot of money. I guess it’s time to check my bank balance and see how much I need to save! 

This problem is not one I anticipated having when I decided to write mysteries. What unexpected problems have you encountered in either your professions or your hobbies?