John Sandford takes notice of the Villages.
 

Was deep into John Sandford's latest book Judgment Prey and up pops a character who needs to be interviewed but it turns out she is unavailable as she is visiting her parents in the Villages, Florida.

I wonder if Virgil Flowers and Lucas Davenport will be tooling around in a golf cart in Brownwood any time soon?

I think that sometimes an author is paid to name things in a novel. For example, Stone Barrington in the Stuart Woods novels always dines at Patroon's in NYC, and he always drinks Knob Creek bourbon.

A Villager?
 

Could it be that John Sandford (not his real name) lives in the villages?

Hard to tell where he actually lives.

Last I heard he lives in Santa Fe, NM which lies at the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountains at 7,000 feet above sea level. It can get quite cold there in the winter. He is now 79 years old and may have spent some time in TV during the cold winter months in Santa Fe.

He is a golfer.

John Sandford (novelist - Wikipedia)

About the Author.

Frickin Flowers
 

Aha! ‘Uncaged’ authors John Camp, Michele Cook have a bestseller on their hands – Twin Cities

About the Author
 

Fun read, and clearly written *by* him. Seems like a guy who would've excelled at *whatever* he chose to do.

"In 1980, he solo-paddled a canoe from Lake Itasca, the source of the Mississippi River in Northern Minnesota, through New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico. Earlier that same year, he cross-country skied from Fargo, North Dakota to Duluth, Minnesota, at New Years". The boy ain't right. . .

Paid product placement is definitely common in movies and in television, but so far as I know, authors of novels do NOT get paid for naming brand names. Alas! In many cases authors have characters use what they themselves like, or they do a few minutes of research and find out what is preferred or common in a given social class. For example, there are web sites with lists of the ratings of various sorts of alcohol.

In series of novels that have recurring characters, as in detective fiction, many authors give the lead characters tastes the recur from book to book. Many readers enjoy that. I do.

I had a good friend that I edited his books that used my name in several of his works.. Never thought I’d be a Texas Ranger or an FBI agent. Good reads too.

The Lees would be the name of the parents of the character in the John Sandford book unless she goes by her husband's name.