When I wrote my first Sonny Hawke novel, Hawke’s Prey, I structured the plot around a 100-year-snowstorm in the Big Bend region of West Texas. This arid desert sees more rain than most would believe, but the inclusion of deep snow was a surprise to most people.

To be sure I wasn’t getting into that weird world of reader volatility about reality––

“Cars always blow up when you shoot them! Don’t you watch movies?”

“You dumb writer. There’s no thumb safety on a Glock!”

“Can’t you read a map? Elm Street in downtown Dallas is one way going west!!!”

 –––I contacted local Channel 5 weatherman David Finfrock to see if he could explain how such a storm could arrive in that part of the Lone Star State. He graciously invited me to his home and we sat down with paper maps so he could show me how the elements of such a storm could come together.

I outlined the snow storm exactly that way in the book and caught grief from a number of readers who swore there had never been a two-foot snow in Alpine or Marfa, the two towns I combined into Ballard for the novel. The record was 19” back in 1946.

In 2021 and again in 2023, snow fell to startling depths that drifted more than two feet in many places, shutting down that entire part of the country. I was vindicated.

My most recent novel, Hard Country, is a contemporary western featuring Brand Inspector Tucker Snow and his brother, Harley. They work together to take down a meth dealer in rural Northeast Texas, and in the course of the story, Tucker’s late-model Dodge dually is stolen.

They get it back, and Tuck drives it to retired friend west of Fort Worth to see if he can download any data from the pick-up’s computer. The wizard of a mechanic plugs a device into the Dodge and downloads tons of data. They find that the thief linked his iPhone to the vehicle’s blue-tooth, wanting to hear some bad-boy music while he drove. That personal info helped unravel the meth dealer’s world.

This is an excerpt from the novel:

Don pointed at the computer screen. “Everything about Tuck that he didn’t know was downloaded on the truck’s computer. Look here. There are two levels to what I’m looking for. These are places you’ve been. The GPS keeps track of everywhere you drove.”

I didn’t like that one bit. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. The black box in there’s been tracking you since the day you drove off the lot. Here are the speeds you ran from Point A to Point B. They say it only records and holds the info for a short while, but it’s a lie.”

Harley chewed his bottom lip. “How long has this been going on?”

“Since 1994. It started out innocent enough, like everything else the government does, but then they started adding stuff on. The data was used to track how cars performed in crashes, but then they went off the rails with it. They’ll tell you it doesn’t track where you’re going, or record audio and video, but they’re lying through their teeth.

“Now they’re into data mining. Right now there are over seventy-eight million cars on the road with these recording devices. I ’magine ninety-eight percent of the cars sold will be tracking their owners within the next ten years, and probably doing more than that.

“That’s where the technology gets out of hand. More recent vehicles record your habits, where you go, and when. Here’s one I don’t like.” He paused the scrolling screen and pointed with the cursor. “Cameras in cars now track your eyes when you’re driving to see whether you’re watching the road, and not your phone or any other distractions. They do it in the name of safety, but I don’t believe that for one minute.

“What I’m looking for is even deeper, and more disturbing. They’re downloading your taste in music, or your voice commands. They search your history, looking at apps such as Waze, Apple CarPlay, Pandora, or Music Box…which is where I am now. You like big band music, huh?”

I felt the hair on the back of my neck prickle. I do like big band music and only listen to it when I’m in the truck by myself, but the idea of the car recording my listening habits was uncomfortable, to say the least.

“Folks are driving giant smartphones these days. The minute you pair your cell phone with the truck, either by Bluetooth or through a USB port, they tap into everything with personal data, anticipate your needs, and even log into apps that have credit card information and who has access to all that info that shouldn’t be out there.”

He poised and glanced over his shoulder at me. “I can find your credit card numbers if you want, ’cause I bet you’ve ordered stuff through your phone. Boys, you’re watched twenty-four seven. Big Brother is here and people feed him info every day without a shrug or a raised eyebrow. Give me an old ’56 Dodge truck any time.”

There’s more, but you get the picture. People said I was making all this up, but I first heard about it on the Ed Wallace radio show in Dallas. From there I did some digging, and uncovered the actual information above, and then some.

I was once again vindicated by a recent CBS 12 News Now report that featured Jen Caltrider, Director of Mozilla’s “Privacy not Included, who said, “Data is money these days and cars have the ability to collect so much of it, maybe more than any other device including phones.”

This data that is sold to third parties with deep pockets and is also shared with the U.S. Government. The personal information comes from devices within late model cars they investigated (such as Mercedes, Nissan and Ford), utilizing cameras, microphones, and censors. Some of the shared or sold data they reported in the news story includes medical information, buying info, and get this, your sex life.

Hummm…

According to this report, cars collect more of your data than even your phone, and I suspect that includes your Alexa, Dot or whatever smart device is listening in your home. I know that’s true, because one day in the living room a couple of years ago the Bride and I were talking about old school paint by number sets and one I did with my mom back in the early 1960s. That afternoon, an ad popped up on one of my social media platforms for…wait for it…paint by number sets.

Can you imagine the incredible odds of that being a coincidence?

Think of the line in the 1984 hit by Rockwell, “I always feel like somebody’s watching me.”

So do your research, suffer the slings and arrows of disbelievers, and don’t believe there’s anything left to make up. Now, get back to writing.

Hard Country. “An action fan’s dream. Non-stop excitement. Wonderful characters. A terrific locale. And a startling bulletin about how your car is watching you.”—David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of First Blood