Goodreads asked Dawn Reno Langley:

What mystery in your own life could be a plot for a book?

Dawn Reno Langley Oh, this is a hard one. A mystery in my own life that could be a plot. Hmmm. Well, actually I think there is an event that kind of created a mystery and I've often thought of writing it. I was at a booksigning for one of my other novels at a bookstore in a mall in Florida when a man, his wife, and their adorable toddler daughter approached me. They asked me questions about my writing, then said they had a story they wanted written. I've heard that many times during my writing career, and my response is usually that the best person to write that person's story is the person who's living it. Then he told me a little bit of his story.

I was hooked.

His grandfather was one of the most famous Mafia characters to have lived. The man told me about holidays with Jimmy Hoffa, baby christenings with some of the Capone family, moments that only someone on the inside knew. He'd had a bad relationship with his father and ironically, after years of not seeing each other, he ran into the man at a jewelry store -- and his father didn't recognize him.

The story had all the earmarks of a movie, and I decided to ghost write it for him. He delivered cases of old photographs and documents to me, and I began to pore through them. At one point, I went into the house (the boxes were in the garage) and told my husband that what I was reading might endanger us. He laughed. But he hadn't seen what I had.

A week later, my then 48 year old husband had a massive heart attack. We had no insurance, no savings, and no doctors. The man I'd been speaking to called me about something unrelated and heard the fear in my voice. At midnight, he had his cardiologist call me and as a result, my husband had a triple bypass by one of the top surgeons in Florida.

I was indebted to the man.

But he had only done me a favor in order to maintain control, and things got a little hairy and very confusing. People from LA got involved, talk turned to making a movie (totally out of my wheelhouse), and I had more on my plate with my current book responsibilities and my recovering husband than I knew how to handle. Things fell apart, and we lost contact.

A year later, my husband and I were packing our house to move, and I found the boxes of materials the man had given me. I tried several times to contact him and give him back the pics and official documents, but he never returned my calls. So, I had a huge bonfire in my backyard because I was terrified to keep them.

The mystery? Where did he go? Did he ever do the story? Could I tell the story now and fictionalize it? Create a new ending?

Yup, that's the one mystery that could be a book.

What do you think?

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