If you want to write a great action scene, you’ve gotta know something about physics, know someone(s) who does, or be able to figure it out through research. For me, it’s a combination of all three when I write action scenes for my thrillers. One of them happens in Blood Trails, my new thriller novel […]
Tag Archives | fiction
Florida as a murder site? What gives?
I love Florida. I know, I know— who doesn’t? But bear with me. I’m not talking only about Disney World and the beaches. As a mystery writer, I try to peer into the darker side of Florida, which is part of the intrigue! I’m not from Florida. In fact, I’m a proud, self-professed snowbird. Although […]
Happy Mysteries Solved By Saliva
The mystery books I write always involve something nefarious. A crime, a cover-up, or, at the very least, suspicious characters are always elements of the story. But not all mysteries are tragic. A mystery can be a question. Like: Who are my biological parents? That’s where services like ancestry.com come in. Sometimes, those services aren’t […]
John D. Rockefeller: Creative or Criminal?
The storyline of my thriller, Blood Trails, is based around the fiercely competitive field of the oil business. While the story in Blood Trails is completely fiction, it’s supported by factual feuds between oil tycoons. One of the first major public conflicts surrounding the oil business originated with John D. Rockefeller, who demonstrated that the […]
If My Characters Had Winter Break: Traditions Around the States
This time of year I’m especially appreciative of Florida. Largely for the same reasons many of my books take place in Florida. The high today is 78 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius)— and it’s almost December! Just like Florida can do a mean Halloween, Florida can pull off a heck of a holiday/Christmas/winter celebration, too! One […]
When Closed Adoptions Require Investigation
Many adopted or abandoned children, now adults, are on a mission to trace down their biological parents. Or at least, to find as much information about them as possible. Sometimes, such a search calls for a man like Michael Flint, the star of my thriller novel, Blood Trails. Michael Flint is a professional heir hunter. […]
When Can You Afford To Fail?
Call them what you will. Risk takers. Speculators. Explorers. All three can have similar implications in certain scenarios. All three are also descriptions of oil wildcatters. In this day and age, a wildcatter is generally someone who is drilling for oil in a spot where there’s no record of oil existing. It used to be […]
Florida Can Do Halloween, Too!
What are the Halloween traditions where you live? In Florida, where many of my books take place, it doesn’t always feel the way you might expect a typical Halloween to feel. The average temperature on Halloween in Tampa is 72 degrees Fahrenheit. The record low was in 1963 at 43 degrees, and the record high was in 1971 […]
3 Times Satellite Cameras Saw More Than We Did
In my Hunt for Jack Reacher thriller Deep Cover Jack, we see how military and government satellites are being used for surveillance. As I wrote in a recent blog post, satellites use infrared technology to define clarity of images on earth. Since smoke, clouds, fog, even darkness are no problem, satellites can reveal an amazing […]
What is The Problem with Wild Mega Hogs?
There’s a big difference between wild pigs and the pigs you see at a petting zoo. Why do we care about wild pigs? Read on….. Texas knows this. And so does Michael Flint, as you’ll read in my thriller Blood Trails. His latest assignment as an Heir Hunter takes him to Texas, where he encounters […]
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