A ghost in Kansas City: After years of writing for others, author now has a book of his own

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — If you ever meet Tim Vandehey, resist the urge.

“I get this all the time,” he said, “‘What do you do, Tim?’ I’ll be at a party or whatever. ‘Oh, I’m a ghost writer.’ ‘Really.’

“The same question follows 90% of the time. ‘Who have you written books for?’ and the next thing almost always follows, ‘If you can tell me.’ It’s supposed to be this big hush-hush thing.”