About:

No, that's the best part. Nothing is more exciting and challenging than bringing to life for the first time a new story and characters. It's like exploring a new world each time.

I do have certain code that I attempt to stick to: write every day, read every day. I am fairly regimented in my writing: I get up and go immediately to the computer. I will write for two hours, then I take a two-hour break, then back again for two hours. Then I print up what I wrote and hand-edit it in the evening, giving it a polish, then enter those edits, so I can start fresh the next day. I'll do this 5-6 days a weeks.

The wry answer: With two books a year to complete, I don't have time for writer's block. But more seriously, when a story begins to bog down and I feel blocked, something is intrinsically wrong with the scene or character or point of view I'm working on. Sometimes I have to backtrack and search for where the story had gone astray and edit things back into proper alignment. Once I correct that error, the story flows with more vigor again and we're off and running.

The price of ebooks is one of the most controversial matters to hit publishing in years. Recently the Department of Justice sued the nation's top publishers, including mine -- HarperCollins -- over this very issue. The publishers were accused of collaborating with each other, and with Apple, to set prices artificially high. As you can imagine, with the Federal Government suing my publisher over ebook prices, the author is the last guy to have any say. I could only be a spectator as these two elephants fought with each other. The lawsuit was recently settled but it could be a long time before we see what its effects will be. What's true today may not be true tomorrow, so I will come back to this space from time to time to keep my answer accurate and up to date.As I understand this new settlement, ebook retailers like Amazon will soon be free to set the selling price on ebooks. The publisher will set the retail price, but it's up to the retailer to decide what kind of discount to offer. It'll be like hardcover books, where the list price might be, say, $24.95, but it might sell for various lower prices depending on which store you visit, how recent the book is, how well it's selling, and whether there are any special sales or promotions that week.The good news is that the Federal suit is expected to bring lower ebook prices. The bad news is that with the ink barely dry on the settlement, no one knows precisely how it's all going to work. Prices may change from day to day or hour to hour. If you think the price is too high, try again tomorrow -- it might be different.Authors have very little influence in this area. However, I believe in low ebook prices and I have always urged my publisher to keep prices low. An author wants to be read more than anything else. Any obstacle to that, like prices that are higher than they need to be, is something I will always be opposed to. My publisher has heard this from me loud and clear.

My goal when I set out to write is not to examine the human condition or explore the trials and tribulations of modern society. When I set out to write, I aim for pure balls-to-the-wall adventure, pure escape and entertainment. I follow the three M’s of storytelling: murder, magic, and mayhem. But with that said, I don’t think any adventure story will work unless you do indeed engage the reader on a level deeper than pure popcorn-entertainment. He must care about the characters, or why join you on this journey? She must be invested in the characters to care about their fate. So though entertainment is the goal, it is equally important to craft characters who will live, breathe, and bleed in your reader’s heart and mind. As such, the human condition of your characters must be addressed and examined. They must be brought to life with all the frailties and quirks and problems and nuisances that the reader brings to the books. For the reader to relate, he must find something in which to relate. This must not be neglected. I strongly believe that character and plot must be tightly interwoven, especially in adventure fiction. One will not work without the other.

One of the recurring themes in my novels is the exploration of how advancing technology affects us. Technology is not all cogs and wheels. There is a human cost to every bit of technology. It regularly tests society’s moral compass. Is human cloning good or bad? What about stem cell research on aborted fetal tissue? What about the escalating realism of the violence in video games? Can and should we engineer our children in the womb? At every turn, in every facet, technology tests a society — morally, spiritually, and economically. And at the pace in which technology is leaping and bounding, we are quickly outstripping our abilities to rein in our advancements or to adequately judge where these technologies will take us. So what do we do? Where are we heading?Such questions are wonderful fodder in the modern scientific adventure. Through the vehicle of the adventure story, I can explore not only the physical threat of unchecked advancements but also the spiritual and moral dangers. Because fundamentally, the true terror of technology is not the cogs and the wheels, but how it will change us. And even more frightening…will we even have a voice in this evolution?

(1) Have the character demonstrate exceptional skill at his/her profession or some other task. (2) Have the character be funny/humorous. (3) Have character treat others well. (4) Have the character demonstrate kindness to pets/kids/elderly. (5) Have the character afflicted or suffering from undeserved misfortune. (6) Show other people demonstrating affection for the character. (7) Give the character some physical/mental/educational handicap, or make them a massive underdog.

I start with the three main tent poles to the story: the historical mystery, the science behind the story, and the exotic locales.  I research those elements while constructing the skeleton of the plot. After that, I’m ready to write, to put the flesh on that skeleton.

I love to research — love it to a fault! So I try to restrict my research to a set period of time both before I begin a book and while writing it. I do the bulk of my research before I set the first word to paper.I usually have four to five books that are my research bibles for a particular novel. Then I branch off onto the Internet or libraris for additional tidbits and also do phone interviews with experts in their respective fields of study.It is surprising how open and helpful people are in this endeavor.  While researching details on the space shuttle for Deep Fathom, I was lost among the volumes of information on NASA’s web site. Finally frustrated with labyrinthine layout of the site, I contacted the webmaster of the site and asked for information. Two days later, I found on my doorstep the entire technical manual for the shuttle, hand-delivered and dropped off. That's just one of countless examples of folks who have gone out of their way to help an author. It's also a great way to create new fans!

When I do my initial research — and this all applies mostly to the thrillers — I’ll research until I have a good feeling of place, and I have the dynamics of the scientific mystery established. Then I’ll construct the plot. Once this is accomplished, I’ll begin to write, and what I’ll find is that I’ll have a score of niggling details to research during each writing shift. This is minor stuff:  street names, a bit of detail on a gun, some snatch of foreign language. If the needed detail will set some tone that I want to establish in the scene, then I’ll pop on the Internet right then and grab what I need.  If not, then I’ll wait until the day’s end when I’m polishing and line-editing.

As a veterinarian, my schooling concentrated on the sciences. I’m fascinated by all aspects and all fields. I continue to subscribe to many scientific magazines: Discover, National Geographic, Scientific American, New Scientist, Archaeology. I get many great ideas from these magazines.

I went to Cambodia to research the ruins of Angkor Wat and tried fried tarantula. I’m not sure that classifies as adventure, but it was an experience that I’m not looking to repeat.

Suspense is the true heart of all good adventures, the proverbial cliff hanger. You take your character (and reader) to the edge of disaster, have him peer over, then push him from behind when he least expects it. And the crux of a good thriller is to make those cliffs higher and higher throughout  the novel. Strive for tightening that noose notch by notch. Each level of suspense should build upon the previous one.  Each situation must be unique, each outcome more inventive. Lester Dent (author of most Doc Savage novels) once suggested: “Never kill characters the same way twice.” He was right — always strive to be unique. Finally, let the reader rest between events, then just as they think they’ve caught their breath, hit ‘em again and again and again. And one last note on the practical side, always end a chapter with a note of peril, whether physical or emotional. Make that reader want to turn that next page to see what happens.

It does take some thought. I often take half a book before I even discover my main character's real name. I don't know if I have any specific process. I look through phone books, or if I hear of any unusual name, I note it. Then it's a matter of mixing and matching, trying a name on for size, playing with it, then finally settling on one that fits best.

Depends on the day. But most often it is not past characters that influence me, but the current ones in the work-in-progress. I so get under these folks' skins that it can take me up to an hour to shake loose of them and return to reality. I'm often dazed and incoherent for a bit while coming up for air after writing for a spell.

I can't say any specific character changed my life, but by exploring the human condition of various characters and living in their skins over the course of a book, I think my own appreciation and patience for the quirks, foibles, and eccentricities of my fellow man has grown.

I think there is a part of me in every character I create — good and bad. That’s one of the best parts of writing: to explore those dark corners of your own psyche, to fathom the depths of your own character, and to challenge yourself. What could be more fun?

From a practical standpoint, these remote locations are perfect places to stage some pretty wild adventures and plant some ancient mysteries. They are hidden corners of the world. In such places, anything can happen! Another reason I venture to these exotic locales is that I get to live in them, at least in my imagination, for the length of a novel — plus I can skip the immunizations and avoid anti-malarial medications.

Anyone who has heard the stories about what I did to my brothers and sisters should know better than to ask to be in one of my novels. But they ask anyway! The deal is: If I put you in a book, I get to kill you in some horrible, horrible way.

The actual writing process — the routine – is very left brain. Perhaps this goes back to my background in medicine and science. But the birthing process of the story, developing plot and character, that is all right brain. I accumulate tidbits of facts — intriguing pieces of science, interesting threads of historical mysteries, colorful scraps of exotic lore — and at some point in my mind, all these fragments begin to connect in unusual ways and a story forms. Like many authors, perhaps it’s best if we don’t explore this method too closely. That’s territory even an adventure writer fears to travel.

I do about 70 percent of my writing in my office, but sometimes I get a bit stir-crazy being cooped up there, so I’ll grab my laptop and write somewhere else: another room in the house, out on the patio, or even Heaven forbid: a trip to Starbucks. I also write on the road. Oh yes, and in that cabin in the woods...I’m pretty disciplined in order to keep the momentum of a story going by writing every day, even if it’s only a couple paragraphs or a page or two. I stress the importance of writing regularly in the Hawaii Writer’s Retreat. To practice what I preach, I get up at 5:00 every morning in Hawaii — both to watch the sunrise and to get some writing done.

The worst and most insidious procrastination for me is research. I’ll be looking for some bit of fact or figure to include in the novel, and before I know, I’ve wasted an entire morning delving into that subject matter without a word written. It can be a trap for writers: thinking they’re working, when really they are just entertaining themselves with research. I also have to watch the amount of time I spend reading e-mail or surfing the Internet. Both are insidious time traps.

I spend 90 days researching and constructing the story. This is a very intense, immersive period. Then on Day 91, I must start writing. I set this goal because I truly enjoy researching and could keep researching and actually never start the book.

Definitely. Some authors outline to a great degree. I know where my story starts, I know where it ends, I know several stopping points along the way. But that’s about it. I know the skeleton, but what I enjoy most about writing is the discovery along the way: new characters, new plot twists, etc. Characters are always surprising me, taking stories into unexpected territories or ideas. I swear sometimes my characters have come up with elements all on their own and I'm just the chronicler.

Definitely. My first novel was Subterranean. The first draft was 640 pages long. Once we were done editing it, the novel was 480 pages. Since that book, I’ve learned to write tighter. But I also challenge myself with each novel to push my craft to a higher level.

The pennames came about because my real last name is too hard to pronounce. Since word-of-mouth sells books, you want those mouths to be able to pronounce your name. The different names came about because I sold my first thriller and my first fantasy within a week of each other to two different publishing houses. Both publishing houses preferred that I have a unique name for each genre to not confuse readers.

I have more plans for the Godslayer books. The working title for Book Three is God-Sword. Besides continuing the storyline, we’ll be discovering much more about Laurelle, her past, and her perilous journey to a god hidden in the heart of a volcano.  God-Sword will finish the first trilogy. And there may be a second trilogy with many of the same characters.

I tried writing both simultaneously, but it was a disaster. I basically switch from thriller to fantasy and back again. The thrillers sell strongly in the United States, but the fantasies are very successful abroad.

I generally classify the books as scientific thrillers or adventure thrillers. I’m always looking to blend a bit of historical mystery and a bit of scientific speculation, and setting up a large adventure story to wrap all around it.

I'd love to write spy fiction one day. But presently my plate is very full. There are a score of genres that I’d like to tackle some day, including a book about a veterinarian.

I find writing a series to be harder. Sure, you have a cast of characters that you don’t have to create out of thin air, but it also is a challenge to have those characters change and grow, to keep each book self-contained enough to be read in any sequence, and to adhere to a world-view that is consistent between the books. It’s tough.

I firmly believe it’s important that the characters be real and the subject matter be relevant. That’s one of the reasons I set my thrillers in the real world and embroil them in threats and dangers that could truly arise.

My main goal is to entertain, but I think the best entertainment also strives to make us think and to challenge our view of history or the world around us. It’s important to leave readers with something to contemplate after they turn that last page. When I hear a reader say that a certain novel intrigued them enough to explore a detail raised in a book, I know I’ve done my job well: to entertain, to intrigue, but also to leave something to explore afterward.

I think most novelists write what interests them ... which was a quandary for  me, as my reading interests were wide and varied.  Though I’m an avid reader of all the current thriller writers, I also love horror, scifi/fantasy, and mysteries. When I first began writing, I dabbled in short fiction, trying various voices, styles, and genres. It was all terrible, stuff now buried deep in the backyard. But it did serve to find the voice that most spoke to me and allowed me to tackle my first novel-length project, Subterranean. This first book, like Excavation, is really a cross-genre novel, a mix of ALL the tropes of my favorite genres: a mainstream thriller at heart, but with a bit of mystery and a dark current of scifi/fantasy coursing throughout it.

I did indeed construction Excavation in the tradition of lost world/lost race adventure as found in H. Rider Haggard and Edgar Rice Burroughs (with a wild ride at the end thrown in for good measure). My editor even classified my early books as “lost race” novels. The germ of this specific novel came from two ideas that merged together:(1) A lost Incan tribe still surviving up in the Andes, and (2) The possibilities of nanotechnology being used to evolve the human species.I love merging the ancient and the modern, then stirring that pot and seeing what develops. You’ll see this blend in each of my books. I also like to peel back ancient myths and search for the hidden truths behind these stories. In Subterranean, it was Aboriginal mythology.  In Excavation, it was Incan mythology.  In Deep Fathom, it was Polynesian mythology. 

I don’t actually have one wellspring of inspiration. Though I’m most often inspired while reading — both fiction and nonfiction. While reading articles for pleasure and interest an interesting “What If?” will pop into my head. I’m also an avid movie buff. (Often when I’m stymied by a part of my writing day, you’ll find me at the matinee with a bucket of popcorn in my lap.) For some reason, some of my best solutions and ideas are triggered in those dark theaters, usually totally unrelated to what’s going on onscreen. I also enjoy hiking in the foothills and mountains in Northern California. I always have to bring a pen and paper to jot down sudden thoughts and ideas. So inspiration arises from countless sources.

Ideas come from various sources. Sometimes they arise from a bit of history that ends in a question mark, something unknown or unexplained. Other times it arises out of a bit of science that makes me go: “What if…?” And I also have started books because of interesting locations that have intrigued me, like the Amazon rain forest. So inspiration comes from many different directions.

There's the old adage: The book was better than the movie. And I think that mostly arises from the fact that books allow readers to experience the story through more intimate eyes. In the case of Indiana Jones, they get to put on that fedora, pick up that bullwhip, crawl through the ancient ruins. The reader gets to experience the adventure at a new and deeper level. The book also expands what is covered during the two hours on the screen with new scenes, new insights, new depths of character and plot. A good novelization should do all that, and that was my goal when I took on this project.

I describe the book as a disaster movie in novel format. It’s a story of volcanic eruptions, island-swamping tsunamis, and earth-shattering quakes. The story starts when a deep-water research station off the coast of Australia discovers a strange bioluminescent coral in an otherwise dead sea—a species that defies science. Yet, this species might hold the key to saving oceans around the world. But before further investigation can commence, masked assailants attack the station. The incursion sets in motion a devastating chain of events that turns oceans toxic, corrupts coastlines, and threatens all life with a danger like no other.
For any hope of stopping the destruction, Sigma Force—the heroes of the story—must uncover a key buried in the past, one hidden deep in Aboriginal mythology. But what Sigma discovers is even more frightening, something lost for millennia—something that will shake the very foundations of humanity.

Oh, I wager that there’s a bit of me in all my characters: good and bad. It’s hard to breathe life into characters without a little of you flowing into them.

They’re a team of former special forces soldiers who have been drummed out of the service for various reasons. But because of special aptitudes and abilities, they’ve been recruited in secret by DARPA—the Defense Department’s research-and-development agency—and retrained in various scientific disciplines to act as field agents for DARPA. Their mission is to protect the globe against various emerging threats. Basically, they’re scientists with guns.

Many times. I’m often out having fun and something strange will happen or a great idea will pop into my head. Often they’ll end up in the books. This past New Year I went diving with sharks, and I suspect something from that adventure will end up in a book one day.

Well, over the years, my books have been critically compared to Indiana Jones – I think mostly due to the historical or archaeological nature of the novels. In fact, one reviewer of my book, Map of Bones, described it as a cross between Indiana Jones and The Da Vinci Code. And such reviews did eventually draw the attention of Random House, which obtained the adaptation rights to the film. After that, my name got submitted, and I got the thumb's up.

The story starts when out all hell breaks loose at United Nations relief camp in a small village in the Congo. Men, women, and children are found in a dull, catatonic state. The environment surrounding them—both plants and animals—has grown more cunning and predatory, evolving at an exponential pace. And it’s not just the one village. The phenomenon is sweeping across Africa, threatening the rest of the world. To head off global catastrophe, Sigma Force must uncover the shattering secret at the heart of the African continent— at cursed place known as the Kingdom of Bones.What they learn will illuminate who we are as a species and where we may be headed next. It’s not for the faint of heart—not the storyline, certainly not the truths to be found within the pages.

All writers start out as readers. My inspiration to read came from my parents. They loved to read and instilled the same passion in me.

I would've written this in my own blood if they'd asked me to. I'm a huge Indy fan. In fact, I remember seeing Raiders for the first time. There was a sneak preview of that movie, and I had to be the first to see that movie. I'm just that sort of movie geek (and proudly so!). In fact, I still have a “May the Force Be With You” button from being one of the first 100 people into the first screening of Star Wars. Needless to say, I had to see that sneak preview of Raiders. BUT…I had booked a white-water rafting trip for that day. I remember paddling really, really fast to make sure I was out of that river in time to make the movie. I didn't quite make it. I had to go straight from the river to the theater. So I watched Raiders with soaking wet sneakers and damp clothes. All in all, it's not a bad way of watching Raiders. It added a little something to the viewing.

They’re a team of former special forces soldiers who have been drummed out of the service for various reasons. But because of special aptitudes and abilities, they’ve been recruited in secret by DARPA—the Defense Department’s research-and-development agency—and retrained in various scientific disciplines to act as field agents for DARPA. Their mission is to protect the globe against various emerging threats. Basically, they’re scientists with guns.

The story starts when an archaeologist—who vanished along with a survey team into the Egyptian desert two years prior—comes stumbling back out and dies in a small village. But what’s strange is that his body is already partly mummified, as if someone had forced him to undergo the painful and gruesome ritual while he was still alive. Unfortunately when he came stumbling out of the desert, he wasn’t alone. He was carrying a plague organism, one that traces back to Moses’s ten plagues from the Bible. As this disease spreads and threatens to trigger the other nine Biblical plagues, Sigma Force is called in to search for a way to stop it. From there the story blows up into a global adventure spanning from Africa all the way up to the Arctic Circle. It’s one of Sigma’s biggest adventures yet.

Sigma Force is a team of former special forces soldiers who have been drummed out of the service for various reasons. But because of special aptitudes and abilities, they’ve been recruited in secret by DARPA—the Defense Department’s research-and-development agency—and retrained in various scientific disciplines to act as field agents for DARPA. Their mission is to protect the globe against various emerging threats. Basically, they’re scientists with guns.

I based the book’s prologue on written accounts from that time, specifically by the lieutenant governor of Java—Sir Stamford Raffles—who plays a vital role in this story. While there have been many near-apocalyptic volcanic events throughout the planet’s history, the 1815 explosion of Mount Tambora was the largest ever in recorded history, witnessed by hundreds of thousands, and shared with the world by British colonial ships plying the South Pacific. The blast was heard eight hundred miles away and was first attributed to cannon fire. It sent a plume of ash and rock eighteen miles into the sky. Between the immediate explosion and the starvation that followed, millions would die when the ash cloud circled the equator, dropping temperatures in some areas as much as twenty degrees. It resulted in the infamous “year without a summer.” It serves as a reminder that we’re living on a geological powder keg—and that even worst eruptions could happen. 

It was somewhat intimidating to step into Indy's shoes, smash on that fedora, and grab that bullwhip. After Indy's absence for 19 years, expectations for his return were huge - including my own. I was going to have to do him justice. Yet to be able to dabble with the mythology and legacy of this character – what more could an adventure writer ask for? As I began working on the book, I found myself getting lost in the character. Soon I was cracking that whip and crawling through those ancient ruins alongside Indy.

I have been asked this question many times at signings, conferences, etc. And initially I would shrug. I read so avidly that it was difficult to say who most influenced my work. It actually took a reader to expose the heart of my deepest influence. After reading Subterranean and Excavation, he emailed me to tell me I was ripping off Doc Savage.  After reading this, I glanced to my library’s bookshelves: sitting there were all 182 Doc Savage novels (Bantam reprints, not the actual pulps). He was right!  I read these from adolescence through high school and was absolutely in love with these scientific adventure books. Sitting next to them were smaller collections of other pulp reprints: The Shadow, The Spider, The Avenger.So at the heart, my deepest influence is the old pulps. On some unconscious level, I’ve been trying to bring back those old dime adventure stories, recast into the present, adapted to modern technologies, and given a polish.Other early influences on a more conscious level are Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and H. Rider Haggard (as of course Subterranean was clearly a modern adaptation of Verne’s Journey to  the Center of the Earth).

I always hate this question even though I ask it of fellow authors. My reading habits are wide and free-ranging. So it’s hard to say I have a particular favorite, but I’ll list a few. In the classics department, I’m all about Dickens and Twain. In modern literature, I read every word of Annie Proulx. In thrillers, I love the three K’s: Koontz, King, and Crichton (okay the last does not start with a “K” but it sounds like it does). And Clive Cussler, too. In mysteries, I really love Janet Evanovich, Nevada Barr, and the new writer, P.J. Tracy. In adventure fiction, I read everything by the writing team of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. In science fiction and horror, I love the cross-genre writer, Dan Simmons, and brilliant space opera of Lois McMaster Bujold. In fantasy, I am enamored and envious of the talents of George R.R. Martin and Stephen Donaldson. And I’m sure as soon as I turn around and look at my wall of books in my library that I’ve forgotten a thousand-and-one other absolute favorites. So let me stop here.

Shockingly it is. Sokushinbutsu—or Buddhas in the flesh—can be found in Japan, where the practitioners underwent great and excruciating lengths to preserve their tissues after death. This involves fasting, consuming special bark and teas, and swallowing stones—then as death nears, they entomb themselves while still alive. You’ll also find similar practices in China and India.

It was an absolute blast! I first read the script back in the late spring of 2007. At that time, security was as tight as a bank vault. To even read the script, it required a drive over to Lucasfilm studios in the Presidio of San Francisco. But over time, I was allowed access to the script at home and granted a key to a site where still shots from the movie were uploaded. So between reading the script, talking with the screenplay writer (the amazing David Koepp), and viewing the shots from the production department, I was able to begin working on the novel.

I found it an interesting and fascinating challenge. It was both involving and liberating: deconstructing the script, creating internal monologue, expanding some scenes, contracting others, and inventing brand new scenes. The studio gave me a fairly free hand. And all in all, I was able to add about a dozen entirely new scenes that aren't in the script or movie.

As much as possible, I stuck to the reality and limitations of such an enterprise. I consulted marine biologists, oil-rig engineers, ship builders, even companies that manufacture deep-sea submersibles—all to create as accurate a picture as I could. In fact, the leading support ship for the Titan Project—the gigayacht called Titan X—was based on a real-world research vessel that will be sailing the seas in the next year or so. This ship, the Earth 300, will hold a complement of 160 scientists who will be working in 22 state-of-the-art labs, all housed in a thirteen-story glass orb, called “science city.” Upon learning of this ship, I decided to give it a test drive myself in this novel.

It starts when the hero of my books, Commander Gray Pierce, arrives home on Christmas Eve to find his house ransacked, his pregnant lover missing, and his best friend’s two young daughters vanished into the night. The only witness to this brutal attack is his friend’s wife, Kat, who is found beaten, bleeding, and comatose on the kitchen floor. This attack—along with the fiery deaths of a group of female scientists in Portugal—exposes a horrifying danger, a threat that looms ahead of us in real life. Stephen Hawking once described this coming threat as the “worst event in the history of civilization.” Elon Musk fears it will lead to World War III. Even Russian president Vladimir Putin has said that whoever controls this event will control the world. That event is the creation of the first human-like artificial intelligence. As this momentous achievement draws near, a global hunt begins for a young student on the run with a technology capable of unleashing a demon like no other. To stop this from happening and save their loved ones, Sigma Force must solve a mystery tracing back to the Spanish Inquisition and confront the ultimate question facing humanity: What does it mean to have a soul?

Not at all. I tailor each story so a new reader could jump into the series at any point. In fact, only a small fraction of my readership have read my series in order. For anyone interested in this unique set of heroes and the troubles they face, THE LAST ODYSSEY is a perfect place to jump on in.

Not at all. I tailor each story so a new reader could jump into the series at any point. In fact, only a small fraction of my readership has read my series in order. For anyone interested in this unique set of heroes and the troubles they face, Kingdom of Bonesis a perfect place to jump on in.

This novel deals with an alternate timeline for the events featured in the Book of Exodus—the story of Moses, the plagues, and the flight of the Israelites from Egypt. It proves that these were historical events, not mere myths or legends. It’s a view well researched by Egyptologist and archaeologist David Rohl. Likewise, the plagues themselves have a rational and scientific explanation that not only shows they could have happened—but that they could indeed happen again.

The story begins when twin sisters, both geneticists, are attacked on two different continents: one is assaulted at a research dig in Croatia; the other is abducted from a primate research center outside of Atlanta—along with a very special research animal. The heroes of Sigma are called in to rescue and protect the two women, while exposing a plot by the Chinese government to genetically engineer a hybrid species of human. But the story is also so much more. Besides a continent-hopping adventure, the novel examines the roots of human intelligence, exploring who we are and where we’re headed next.

Harrison Ford brings much more to the character than just his dialogue and actions: the way he shifts his fedora, the glint in his eye, the slight snarl or grin. It tells us much more about the character, and my goal was to try to capture that on the page, to bring to life not only the external Indy…but also the internal. What he's thinking, how he reacts, what he sees…and sometimes more importantly, what he DOESN'T see. That was both the challenge and the exhilaration in bringing this character to life on the page.

Everyone knows about the famous Salem Witch Trials, where twenty people—fourteen of them women—were put to death for the practice of witchcraft. But these deaths were only the final spasm of mass hysteria that had already swept Europe. There, persecutions ran for nearly three centuries, and all told, over sixty thousand “witches” were burned, hung, or drowned.

All of this bloodshed and death can be attributed to the publication of a single book in 1487, a witch-hunter’s manual called the Malleus Maleficarum—or The Hammer of Witches. Written by a German Catholic priest and mass produced by the newly invented printing press, copies quickly spread across Europe and over to the Americas. It grew to become the instructive “bible” for prosecutors to identify, torture, and execute witches. Many scholars deem it one of the most blood- soaked books in history, even comparing it to Mein Kampf, as it led to over sixty thousand deaths, most of them women.

I had a huge party with friends and family. But you'll have to ask them about it. For some reason, after countless bottles of champagne, I can't seem to remember the details.

Again, everything that appears in this novel is based on either ships in use today or those that are undergoing testing. I was very interested in the current acceleration of the Chinese navy and the advancements being engineered into their vessels, namely the incorporation of AI into many of their systems—both civilian and military. All the ships, drones, and submarines that appear in the novel are stunningly real. I think readers are going to be shocked at what’s currently being employed—both by our forces and by the Chinese.

Sure. My support for veterans first came about after I participated in a USO tour of authors to Iraq and Kuwait in the winter of 2010. Upon coming home, I knew I wanted to do more. First, I worked with USA Cares, which raises emergency funds for vets in need, then most recently I joined US 4 Warriors as an advisory board member. The new charity started as a grassroots effort in San Diego and has since expanded nationwide. Besides helping to promote the social welfare of vets in a wide spectrum of activities, the latest endeavor also involves helping veterans tell their stories…and get published! So as a writer, I’m especially exciting as US 4 Warriors expands into this adventure.

James: Each of the first two books ended with some fairly dramatic climatic battle scenes, where the tides of the story and characters’ lives were changed, so knowing this was the conclusion of the trilogy, Rebecca and I plotted a grand design where all stakes were on the table, allowing us to take our characters where few writers are willing to go: straight to the very gates of Hell for a direct confrontation with Lucifer. And along the way, we learn more about the Sanguines, more about the secret history behind these books, and more about the truest hearts of our characters.

Rebecca: We both wanted to make sure that the characters, those who live through the book anyway, faced their greatest fears and came out the other side, ready to go on with their lives. We wanted them to finish out this adventure together, but also to suggest where their lives might go from here—give them some closure.

There is indeed. Her name was Saint Columba and a cult grew around her in northern Spain during the Middle Ages. According to legend, Columba was a witch from the ninth century, who met the spirit of Christ on the road. He told her she could not enter Heaven unless she converted to Christianity, so she did—but she remained a witch. She was eventually martyred and beheaded for her faith and became known as the “patron saint of witches.” To this day, she acts as a protector for witches, interceding on the behalf of good witches, while fighting against those who would corrupt such craft for evil purposes.

I certainly do love to dig deep into the subject matters I write about. I love it so much I’ve learned over the years that I have to rein myself in a bit. I limit my main block of research on a novel to 90 days. On the 91st day, I have to begin writing. That all said, I’m also a bit of a lazy researcher. I prefer to interview people and pick their brains versus drily reading some history lesson or scientific treatise. Rather than having to earn a degree on a certain subject, I’d rather query people who have already earned those PhDs. Such a method often uncovers tantalizing details that I would’ve never found in a book, article, or Internet search. For The Demon Crown, I contacted scientists in various fields, but also the management team of a Polish salt mine—where, of course, much mayhem abounds in my novel.

Oh, I think each and every one of my novels has some character either heading underwater or underground. It allows me to live vicariously through my characters as I’m landlocked in my office.

The Zika virus originated in a monkey in Uganda, yet it’s grown into a tragic disease spreading around the world and now into the United States, causing crippling and deadly birth defects. Yet, as you can see from the media, we’re struggling to address it as it hits our shores. The organism in my novel is in the same family of viruses and causes birth defects and death, but only in male children, very much like Moses’s tenth plague—the deaths of the firstborn sons. So this novel serves as a cautionary tale about Zika and about our inability to face such crises.

He was—and someone who deserves great credit for exposing the atrocities committed against the Congolese people throughout the colonial era. King Leopold II of Belgium oversaw a reign of terror in the Congo. Ten million people would be slaughtered in a little over a decade’s time. These atrocities went mostly unreported, until an American missionary, Reverend William Sheppard, a graduate Southern Presbyterian Theological Seminary for Colored Men in Tuscaloosa, arrived in the Congo, armed with a Kodak box camera. He risked his life and the success of his mission in exposing the depths of cruelty and savagery being committed against the people of the Congo. He’s a true hero of that era—and my book. What he does in the past is significant in saving the future.

The story starts when a group of researchers stumble upon a shocking find: a centuries-old medieval ship buried a half-mile below the melting ice. The ship holds a collection—both wondrous and horrific—dating back to the Bronze Age. Including a clockwork gold map crafted by a group of Muslim inventors, considered to be the Leonardo Da Vincis of their time. It is a map rumored to lead to Tartarus, the Greek version of Hell featured in Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey. And in order to stop zealots from breaking those gates open and unleashing an apocalypse, Sigma Force must go where humans fear to tread—to cross through the very gates of Hell to save the world.

For me, Indiana Jones is the everyman hero. He doesn't have any super powers, nor does he have any cool gadgets like James Bond. He perseveres through both dogged willpower and the strength of his intelligence. He is scarred, weathered, and tempered by his experiences. Plus he does not take himself too seriously. He pokes fun at himself with his wry humor as often as he does the world.

They were. China’s lunar lander did mysteriously break down while trying to drill into a strange stratum of the moon. And the lunar rocks recovered showed that, during the moon’s formation, its core cooled far slower than previously believed. The reason still baffles scientists. But I have my own theory, which I raise in the book—one based on another strange detail about the moon’s formation, a detail that still affects us today and could threaten us in the future.

It starts with an anthropological mystery. For the past two hundred thousand years, human brains had been roughly the same size and shape, but for some inexplicable reason, roughly fifty thousand years ago, there was an explosion in art, ingenuity, and civilization. This moment in time was given the name the “Great Leap Forward” and has baffled both anthropologists and geneticists. Why did human intelligence suddenly surge ahead?

The most common accepted theory is that early man had begun to migrate out of Africa, exposing us to foreign lands and unique challenges, which stimulated new innovations and ways of looking at life. But what if it was something more? What if during this migration, early man encountered something more powerful than simply new lands, something that changed our DNA? That’s what this novel explores, tapping into the latest research about an unknown piece of mankind’s history. What I discovered is astounding.

As a veterinarian myself, I’ve always loved science, medicine, and technology, especially anything that’s cutting edge and new. In my books, it’s not so much the cogs and wheels of that new bit of science that intrigues me as it is where that technology might be heading and how it might affect or lives—good or bad. The rapid advancement of such technologies often challenges the moral compasses of society and to have that mirrored by my characters during their adventures adds that touch of relevancy to a novel. In The Demon Crown, the book tackles issues involving not only invasive species, but also climate change, and the newest revelation by scientists concerning what truly wiped out the dinosaurs. Shockingly, it’s not what anyone imagined—and that threat still exists today.

We do indeed carry Neanderthal genes. In fact, roughly 2-4% of our genome comes from this unusual ancestor. But we also know it wasn’t just Neanderthals who left traces in our genomes, but also an extinct species called the Denisovans. For example, the Denisovans contributed an important gene that allows Tibetans to live at the high altitudes. Likewise, over the past year, another fingerprint in our DNA suggests there was a third extinct species who also added to our genome, but anthropologists have yet to identify these individuals. But in The Bone Labyrinth, I offer a possible—and startling—answer.

Who didn't fall in love with Marion Ravenwood from the opening scene in the Raven Saloon in Nepal, where she drinks a competitor under the table? Even by then, it's already clear that Indy had a rocky relationship with the fiery Ms. Ravenwood. Jump decades into the future and nothing has changed! When those two meet, it's like tossing oil on gasoline.

Definitely. The novel is my attempt to expose the dark truths hidden in our mythologies. For eons, the city of Troy—whose fall was detailed in Homer’s Iliad—was believed to be myth, until archaeologists in the nineteenth century uncovered its ancient walls buried beneath the sands. And just like that, myth became history. And if Troy was a real place, how much of Homer’s twin tales of gods and monsters,curses and miracles—The Iliad and the Odyssey—could also be true and awaiting discovery? That’s what this book explores, crossing from one end of the Mediterranean to the other, revealing how history and mythology blend to reveal the hidden truths of our past.

His name was Alonso de Salazar Frías. He earned the name “The Witches’ Advocate” due to his belief that most, if not all, accusations of witchcraft during the time of the Spanish Inquisition were mere delusions or false testimony drawn from torture. He saved countless lives with his defense of witches. In fact, I was surprised to learn that because of his persuasive arguments, the Spanish Inquisition was one of the first organizations in Europe to outlaw the burning of witches.

Rebecca: Working on an epic scale was new for me—so setting up the character arcs across multiple long books, setting up timelines that go from the time of Christ to the present day, and juggling the ensemble cast across time and space. Plus doing all that while figuring out how to collaborate with someone else.

James: I think the hardest was simply figuring out how to collaborate. This was a first such project for both of us. Initially, there was the awkwardness of how to critique or edit another writer’s pages. It was a bit of a dance at first (“Rebecca, I see where you’re going with this scene but maybe if we carefully tweak it here or there it could be made even stronger”), but eventually as we got to know each other even better, we learned to shorthand it (“Jim, this scene sucks…rewrite it!”…and she was usually right). One question we get asked a lot is: how much did you two argue about the plot or characters? And actually the answer is: very little. Once we nailed down those characters’ voices—learned who they were and how they ticked—and laid down the big plot points, any time we came to a loggerhead we let the characters tell us where to go.

That’s certainly a good question. According to stories throughout the Middle Ages, there was a Black Christian King—named Prester John—who ruled a vast African empire. According to the legends surrounding him, he was descended from Balthazar, one of the three magi who visited the Christ child in His manger. His kingdom was said to be one of astronomical wealth, with his legend tied to the Fountain of Youth, to the Ark of the Covenant, and to King Solomon’s mine. For centuries, European rulers—even popes—sent forth emissaries to seek him out, many of whom vanished into the jungle and never returned. Even Shakespeare mentions him in Much Ado About Nothing. Today, most historians dismiss this tale of a black Christian king who ruled over a vast swath of Africa as mere myth, but could there be some bias behind this judgement? For such a story to persist for centuries, there surely must be some kernel of truth behind these legends. And in Kingdom of Bones, you’ll learn that sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

It was a gradual process. I sold my veterinary practice after selling my first two thrillers, but I continued to work as an employed veterinarian at the same facility. This allowed me to shed the business responsibilities and wear one less hat to work. Over three more years, I graduated down to part-time, then weekend work, and then I stepped away completely. Now all I do is a monthly spay-and-neuter clinic at the local animal shelter here in Sacramento. Ultimately, the question most people want to know when to step away from their “regular” job? I read somewhere about the Rule of Five: You need to have five books out on the shelves, all earning royalties, before you can safely give up the day job. And oddly enough, this is about what happened to me.  By the time five books were on the shelves, I had stepped away.

They are very real. They’ve only recently been identified, but over a dozen different specimens have been found. These are microbes that feed directly on electricity, sucking electrons out of the environment and using them as an energy source. They’re so unique that a slew of labs are exploring practical applications for them—from growing them into living biocables that could conduct electricity to using them to power nano-machines capable of all sorts of industrial uses, including cleaning up the environment.

The consensus of scientists today is that the moon formed when a small planetoid struck the young Earth and blasted a large chunk of the crust into orbit. That eventually coalesced and formed our moon. But for decades, we’ve known of the existence of two large blob-like structures hidden in the Earth’s mantle, just under the crust. One under Africa. One under the south Pacific. Both are the size of a continent and a hundred times taller than Mount Everest. Latest research confirms that these “blobs” are likely pieces of that ancient planetoid that struck the Earth and became trapped in our mantle. But these planetary blobs are not inert. Like splinters under the skin, they have been the source of great tectonic instability, leading to massive quakes and volcanic activity. It’s believed one of those events triggered the Great Dying at the end of the Permian Period, an extinction-level event which wiped out most life on the planet. And it could happen again. To quote a scientist from the University of Oslo, we’re all sitting atop an “antediluvian time bomb.”

Back during the witch trials, many of the women accused of witchcraft were healers who used their local lore of plants and herbs to heal the sick. Or they were simply educated women who were curious and who dared to question the natural world. In other words, they were early scientists and naturalists—which was considered to be the sole domain of men. Yet, even today, women in the sciences find themselves enduring discrimination because of their gender: earning less pay, being passed over for promotions, being sexually harassed. Even their work is considered to be less important. Take for example, Dr. Donna Strickland from Canada, who won the Nobel Prize this year for physics. She was only the third woman in 117 years to be given this award. So, clearly in such a male-dominated field—in a forum considered to be enlightened and educated—women are still being persecuted for daring to question the world around them.

Some of it was hinted at in the script, but I was allowed to expand on it during scenes from Marion's perspective. She's as fiery as Indiana, so is it any wonder their relationship didn't last? But as time has passed, she's gained some perspective on both herself and Indy…reaching perhaps a deeper understanding of the man than Indy has for himself. It's that healing of a wounded relationship that becomes a strong thread throughout both the movie and the novel.

While I don’t intend my novel to be a diatribe about climate change, it’s hard to deny that the Arctic is getting warmer, the ice caps are getting smaller, and it’s opening up the entire north to exploration. Cruise ships are already plying the Northwest Passage, a trek once considered too hazardous to even contemplate and led to the deaths of countless explorers. Even more concerning, the whole region has become a political hotbed because the extensive melting is allowing easier access to the Arctic’s rich resources. Russia, Denmark, and Canada are fighting to divvy up the territory found under the Arctic Ice cap, with lots of butting heads, and Russian submarines are already patrolling under the ice, trying to stake a claim. It’s a powder keg waiting to explode.

James: To be honest, it took a while. There were several early drafts of the opening chapters—which we handed back and forth between us—until we could land our character’s voices where we wanted them to be. From there, it was a matter of deciding which writer should take a crack at which scenes first (i.e., who had the better skill set for that scene), then allowing the other writer to sculpt their own voice atop it to ensure an even tone to the entire book.

Rebecca: I think those early drafts were key to establishing a consistent “voice” for the books. Spending time early on trying to decide the style that we would use and then both writing and editing to that style made things a lot easier.

To accomplish this, I did extensive research. I traveled from the melting glaciers in Iceland to ancient ruins in Sardinia to museums in Athens and Olympia and Rome. I pestered historians and archaeologists and anyone else willing to answer questions. Across the Mediterranean, I studied artifacts and ancient writings dating back to a mysterious era known as the Greek Dark Ages, a shadowy time of the Bronze Age when three civilizations were laid low during a massive war, a warm any historians have dubbed “World War Zero.” One of the only accounts of this war-torn time come from those twin epics of Homer. But THE LAST ODYSSEY sheds an even greater light into that dark time—and what it means for us today.

As an avid scuba diver, I’ve always been interested in this topic—especially the ingenious ways that various animals have adapted to living in the deepest trenches. Yet, still so much remains unknown. Only about 20% of the ocean floor has been crudely mapped. And if you’re talking about finer imaging—detailed enough to spot a plane wreck—that number drops down to a mere 0.05%. So, what’s truly down there remains unknown and unexplored. Even giant squids were once considered mythical until they were found washed up on beaches. That said, when it comes to the wonders I share in this book, I adhered to what is biologically feasible—as astounding as it may read.

First, let me say that Kingdom of Bonesis not a pandemic novel per se, but I believe it is far more frightening. It delves into the weird biology of viruses. In the pages of the book, you’ll discover many shocking details that are all true, details that will shed new light on this pandemic and offer insight into who we are as a species. To accomplish this, I consulted with a slew of evolutionary biologists, virologists, and medical doctors—and I had to keep tweaking the novel as the pandemic unfolded to make sure it remained as topical as possible. But I actually pitched this story to my publishing house in 2019, well before Covid started. Later, my editor asked, “Did any of the virologists you talked to while researching your book warn you about what was coming?” No, they hadn’t. But what they did tell me was even more terrifying—and you’ll learn what that was in this book.

Ah, as I mentioned before: to write is to travel! I’ve been lucky to dive the Great Barrier Reef to walk the tombs of China and to explore the coastal rainforests of Australia. More than anything writing has opened up the world...and I want to share my experiences through my writing. To take people to exotic locales, to mysteries of our ancient past, to share the thrills hidden in the corners of the world. That’s the best part of writing!

Please! This is a G-rated Q&A! How about this: I was once stuck down in a cave for several hours, jammed in a vertical crack, hanging from my rappelling gear. If you’d been with me, you would have heard a lot of “interesting” words.

Mostly because so little is truly known about the man who founded the Smithsonian. James Smithson was a British chemist who never set foot in America, yet left his fortune to our young nation in order to establish this institution that would carry his name. He did so without warning or explanation. Then shortly after the founding of the Smithsonian, its first building—the Smithsonian Castle—was nearly destroyed by a fire during the Civil War. Most of Smithson’s books and journals, along with his vast mineral collection, were destroyed, all but erasing his heritage. Then even more intriguingly, the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, defied the regents of the Smithsonian to sail to Europe. On New Year’s Eve in 1903, under the cover of a snowstorm, he stole the bones of James Smithson from a graveyard in Italy and returned them to the States, where those bones reside today in the Smithsonian Castle. To me, Alexander Graham Bell could’ve been a member of Sigma Force. Here we have a scientist and inventor who was not above a little skullduggery…in this case, literally. In fact, many true-to-life mysteries surrounding those stolen bones are critical to the story.

I spent three weeks in China researching this story and learned how wonderful the people are there, but there remain serious issues, mostly centering on the government’s level of secrecy and espionage. On a side note, I did visit the Beijing Zoo and, as a veterinarian myself, I found the state of that zoological park to be appalling, and even this detail plays a major role in the story.

Even after all the research before and during this pandemic, much remains unknown about viruses. Still, what is known is that viruses are deeply entwined into our own evolutionary history. Their genetic code is buried deep in our DNA. Scientists estimate that between 40 to 80 percent of the human genome may have come from ancient viral invasions. And it’s not just us. Recently scientists have discovered how intimately viruses are woven throughout the natural world. They are the tie that binds all life together. In fact, researchers now believe that viruses could offer a clue to the origin of life; they could be the very engines of evolution; perhaps even the source of human consciousness.

Well, I just moved into a new house that dates back to 1936. Now I’m not that superstitious, but after moving in, I had weird feelings at times: strange cold spots, odd sulfurous smells. I thought to myself, “Cool, this place is haunted.” So I asked the realtor: “Does this house have any history of being haunted?” Her answer, shocking enough: “Have you seen THE ghost?” I was like “No, tell me more.” I expected some grisly tale of death, of families fleeing in the night. Instead she says, “A prior owner had the home inspected by a Fengshui expert who judged the home to be indeed haunted--by the ghost of a raccoon.” Hmm, I thought “That sounds about right for a former veterinarian turned writer.” So to appease this ghost, I now leave my kitchen garbage can open all night. Ghosts gotta eat, too.

It does. Coral has a long and interesting biological history. In fact, coral has been continuously growing in the Mediterranean Sea for 400,000 years.

Definitely. The Chinese government’s pervasive system of hacking, espionage, and infiltration plays a central role in The Bone Labyrinth. But even more importantly, I expose a significant threat from the Chinese that most Americans may not be aware of. It involves the placement of Chinese students in U.S. colleges and institutions.

Currently half the physics doctorates from U.S. universities are awarded to foreign nationals, most of whom take their diplomas and return home. And much of their education is underwritten by the American taxpayer—through grants and financial aid. Not only does this pose a security risk, but we’re also creating our own market competitors. Scientists and engineers ultimately drive innovation—and we’re shipping that intellectual capital abroad.

This novel serves as a cautionary reminder that we are not living in the Age of Man, but rather—as has been true for over 400 million years—we are living in the Age of Insects. In fact, it is now hypothesized that insects contributed—if not led—to the extinction of the dinosaurs. How? You’ll have to read the book for the shocking answer. But of course, this then begs the question concerning the insects’ latest competitors for the earth’s dwindling natural resources: Could we be their next target?

After Indy, Mutt was the one of the best characters to write. A motorcycle-driving, prep-school drop out with a chip on his shoulder the size of the Empire State Building. But he's also sharply intelligent and as keen of eye as Indy. The two make a great team…if they can stop from killing each other first.

During my research, I discovered a tantalizing connection between Leonardo da Vinci and a school of Arab inventors from many centuries earlier, a school called the House of Wisdom which has a fascinating and bloody connection the Greek Dark Ages. From the eighth to the fourteenth century—known as the Islamic Golden Age—Arab scientists proved themselves to be masters of design and innovation. By his own admission, Da Vinci was influenced—even borrowed—from these earlier Muslim inventors. Moreover, the Arab influence over Leonardo’s work has proven to be far greater than anyone imagined. In fact, many of the startling revelations you’ll find in the book’s prologue are indeed true.

All of my books have been released as a hardcover edition. Most are still in print, thought increasingly more difficult to locate.  If you are look for a long out of print edition such as Amazonia, Ice Hunt and Sandstorm.  You can find these editions both new and used through a variety of online stores: eBay and Amazon as well as your independant book collector stores: VJ Books and The Poisoned Pen.

I think the role of women in popular fiction is rapidly evolving. We’re seeing a whole new slew of women in strong roles: from mysteries, to hard-nailed crime fiction, to science fiction and fantasy, to even adventure fiction. But I think ultimately the success of a book boils down to a good story with believable and sympathetic characters. If you create that in your novel, readers—male or female—will find something inside to touch, thrill, and move them.

These are massive projects, basically Hail Mary passes to save the planet. Most climate scientists believe we are near, at, or past the tipping point to do anything. So looking beyond just lowering carbon emissions, researchers are contemplating projects much larger: like enclosing the earth in a solar shield, or flooding Death Valley, or even wrapping Greenland in a blanket. The only problem—beyond the feasibility of funding or accomplishing them—is the danger of unintended consequences, disasters that no one could predict because the number of variables is so huge when talking about a global-wide engineering project. So, of course, I wanted to explore what might happen if someone actually attempted one of these projects.

I actually have the opposite problem. I have so many thoughts and ideas for future books that I wish I could clone myself so I can get them out of my head. As to the origin for all those ideas, I always have my antennae up for three things: a piece of history that ends in a question mark, a tantalizing bit science that makes me wonder “what if?”, and finally some intriguing locale where those first two could collide. I collect all those tidbits on a daily basis, from newsfeeds, from magazines, or simply from asking someone “tell me something about this place that no one else knows about.” It’s the latter method that generates the best story ideas.

It’s a concern I tackle in this novel. Some believe that genetically modifying embryos could eradicate devastating diseases before a baby is born, but we’re also talking about a slippery road toward eugenics, where human life will be engineered, where babies will be designed, where potentially there will be a new class of human. And while this sounds like the stuff of science fiction, it’s already yesterday’s news. The genie is out of the bottle—and where that might lead is explored in The Bone Labyrinth.

I’m sure that will raise a few eyebrows—as did the peer-reviewed research paper upon which that aspect of the book was based. Octopuses have a unique and baffling biology, including an astounding intelligence, all of which makes their evolutionary pathway challenging. The research paper mentioned above—“Cause of Cambrian Explosion—Terrestrial or Cosmic”— theorized that octopuses evolved from cosmic seeding of our planet by extraterrestrial retroviruses during meteor impacts. This paper, of course, was met with much skepticism, but it did withstand a vigorous peer review. So, I decided to test this theory myself in Tides of Fire.

Arthur C. Clarke once wrote that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” You only have to pick up your iPhone to appreciate this statement. If you took your phone a few decades into the past, it would seem miraculous to people back then. Likewise, in my novel, I shine a light into what’s currently transpiring in computer labs around the world, some of it quite
astounding, especially when it comes to the research into artificial intelligence. We’re much farther along this path to a true human-like intelligence than most people realize.

When I first created Ashley, my heroine in SUBTERRANEAN, I purposefully wanted to create a female version of Indiana Jones. A spunky, no-holds-barred archaeologist who just happened to be a woman with a young child. I so enjoyed playing against the common stereotypes found in adventure fiction that I’ve included strong women in all my books. But which is easier? I think its actually easier to develop three-dimensional women, rather than men, because men keep their hearts more deeply hidden. It’s harder to show their vulnerabilities.

I certainly do. All story is tied to setting. Characters rise out of their landscape, whether it’s the indigenous tribes of the Amazon forest or the Inuit hunters of the frozen northlands. Culture, history, mythology are all entangled with the natural world. They are inseparable. So it’s important to bring this natural world as vividly to life as possible.

It does. It ties to an Air Force installation called HAARP, which is an elaborate antenna array shooting energy up to the earth’s ionosphere, the electrically charged layer of our atmosphere. The installation has been the focus for many conspiracy theories, believing it might be a weather-control device or used to read minds. There were even concerns that is might set the sky on fire. So in my story, I built a larger, scarier version up in Canada—and make those fears come true.

According to many virologists, yes. There is a vital gene in our DNA—the Arc gene—that became a part of our genome from the invasion and incorporation of a viral snippet. This gene is essential to the function of our synapses in storing memory, in learning. Abnormalities with this gene tend to show up in people with neurological deficits, even in people with autism. Without the presence of that gene, it’s widely believed among virologists that human consciousness could not have come about. And it’s not just consciousness. Viral genes in our DNA also play a significant role in our embryonic development and in the build of our immune system. Even in our fight against cancer. For example, following a bout of flu, leukemia patients show a dramatic drop in cancer cells. And this all just scrapes the surface of what you’ll find in the pages of this novel.

Ah, the sword-wielding Irina Spalko and her icy bodyguard Colonel Dovchenko. The pair are part of an elite team of Russians seeking to shift the balance of power during the Cold War through research into psychic weapons, to unleash the hidden potential of the human mind in order to achieve dominance. There are depths to both of them that are explored more intimately in the novel.

James: The main characters of Erin and Jordan come from an entirely approachable place. While they’re especially skilled at their various professions, they’re also human, which is something Rebecca and I strived to focus on, allowing this pair to be the readers’ guide into this secret world of the Sanguines. The pair also served as perfect foils to draw out the humanity in monsters and the beauty in the darkest of places.

Rebecca: I agree that Erin and Jordan are the bridge into the story, because they are mostly ordinary humans who fall into the world of the Sanguinists just like the readers do. I think we also wanted to play with the idea of shadow and light in the individual characters, human and otherwise so that the reader could relate to everyone, at least a bit. Erin and Jordan have some shadows in them. Rhun, the other Sanguinists, and even Elizabeth have some light parts that we see as they try to find their way along the dark path that was forced upon them.

I wish! Hollywood has optioned many of the books, both for film and a television miniseries. But nothing has gone into full production. So at this time there are no splashy plans for Deep Fathom (which came close) or any of the other novels. Keep your fingers crossed.

I’ve always found it fascinating that so many bigger-than-life historical figures not only knew each other, but were involved in each other’s lives. Like how Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla were great buddies. Twain even spent time in Tesla’s lab, helping with experiments, and I’m sure being a general nuisance. I love one anecdote. Twain wanted to test Tesla’s “earthquake machine” to help with his constipation. Twain stepped onto the inventor’s large oscillating device and had to promptly and hurriedly excuse himself to the restroom. It’s such a fun relationship that I wanted to give that pair—a writer and an inventor—a great adventure of their own. And that’s what happens in this novel.

Not at all. I tailor each story so a new reader could jump into the series at any point. In fact, only a small fraction of my readership have read my series in order. So anyone interested in this unique set of heroes and the troubles they face, THE DEMON CROWN is a perfect place to jump on in.

It was actually a weird bit of serendipity. Even before being approached for this project, I had already researched quite a bit about the Russian's experimentation into psychic powers forThe Last Oracle. That book deals with a Russian experiment with autistic children who show exceptional savant talent in an attempt to enhance the children's abilities. In my book, that research had its roots during the Cold War where the Russians truly were exploring the possibility of developing psychic weapons. So it was a great deal of fun to bring to life that period of time in the Indiana Jones novel.

I think what surprised me was how much we underestimate the technology of ancient peoples. I hada chance to study the Antikythera Mechanism at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, aGreek device from the first century B.C. Most archaeologists now accept that the device was the firstknown analogue computer. Still, the list of amazing Greek automated designs is much moreextensive. Historians and archaeologists have documented countless designs of self-operatingmechanisms, cunning automatons, and ingenious mechanical devices. And in THE LAST ODYSSEY,readers will get a better look at the astounding extent and breadth of their inventions—many will beshocking, but also true.

From idea to completed manuscript, it took eleven months.

A recent poll of computer experts revealed that 42% of them believe this creation will happen within the decade, with half of those claiming within five years. And a handful believe we’ve already reached that point. Take for example AlphaGO—Google’s DeepMind AI player. It beat the world’s champion at the Chinese game of Go, a game that is trillions upon trillions of times more complex than chess. No one expected any computer to beat a human at Go for at least another decade. Yet, it took the company only months to train AlphaGo to accomplish this. Then more recently, Google built this program’s big brother, AlphaGoZero. This new program taught itself this game, all on its own, and in only three days, became the world champion, beating even its original version in a hundred out of a hundred games. It did this by developing strategies that no human had come up with after thousands of years of play. And there are even stronger programs on the horizon. So be afraid, be very afraid.

I find it interesting that, back in January of 2021, the CIA declassified nearly three thousand pages of documents, known as The Black Vault, pertaining to UFOs and UAPs. Likewise, in July of that same year, the Pentagon produced an unclassified report regarding 144 UAP cases noted by military pilots. Of those cases, only one had an explainable origin—a deflated balloon. Perhaps it’s for that reason that the Pentagon established a new group in November of 2021, to “detect and identify” unknown anomalies in restricted airspace, naming this outfit the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group.
For me, with all the recent declassifications and the continuing slow leak of data, along with the 2022 congressional hearings with Pentagon officials pertaining to the possibility of alien life, it raises two questions: What does the government already know? And what are they trying to prepare us for?
 

Three reasons mostly. First, they’re the only mammal that flies.To accomplish this miraculous feat requires a metabolism that’s on hyperdrive. All that metabolic heat ramps up their tiny bodies to a feverish state that helps hold back infections. This allows them to harbor lots of viruses without getting sick. Second, such a hyperdrive of their immune system can be dangerous to them, so bats disabled ten key genes to further protect them from dying if they should get sick from a virus. Third, like us, bats have a lot of viral code incorporated into their DNA. Unlike us, they can split off and manipulate parts of that code to hold viruses in check. So basically, their bodies were evolutionary designed to be perfect hosts for countless viruses. It’s why many virus hunters take samples from bats to judge the varieties of viruses in any given environment. Such hunters are always on the lookout for what terrifies all virologists: Disease X.

As a veterinarian, I love to fold in animals in unique ways into my stories. The character of Baako was a chance to explore intelligence in nonhuman primates, to compare and contrast that with our own intelligence. What I discovered from doing extensive research is that there are many similarities, which are explored in this novel through this character.

In fact, there’s been a growing movement to recognize primates as worthy of equal protections. The European Union, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand have all banned or tightly restricted the use of great apes as research models for humanitarian reasons. Sadly, the United States still does not have any such restrictions and continues to use great apes in projects, often with limited oversight or supervision and in projects that are often deemed as useless and unproductive.

I would love to see Amazonia made into a movie, mostly just because of all the strange animals in that book. Like the piranha-frog (a mutated cross between a flesh-eating piranha and the poisonous dart frog). I’d love to see the McDonald’s tie-in for that movie: “Buy a Happy Meal, get a plushy piranha-frog!”As to dream actors or screenplay writers, I’d leave that to the experts. For me, the characters in my head ARE the characters, so it’s hard for me to pick actors to fill the various roles. But I’d love to do a cameo in the movie…perhaps even being chased by a piranha-frog.

The first recorded use of war dogs go back to 4000 BC, to the Egyptians who used them in battle. But the modern use of dogs in the US military really started in WW I. Since then, dogs have become an integral part of the U.S. military. Including the dog, Cairo, who was involved with the takedown of Osama Bin Laden.

My fascination with this unique bond of dog and military handler was ignited during “Operation Thriller,” a USO tour of authors to Iraq and Kuwait in which I participated back in the winter of 2010. Out in that sandbox, I got a chance to observe a few of these fighting teams in action. Not only did I get the opportunity to meet with these four-legged soldiers and their two-legged partners, but I was allowed firsthand access to their daily life. I heard one phrase over and over again that captured this relationship: it runs down the lead. I learned that as these handlers trained where around their dogs 24/7—training together, eating alongside one another, sleeping in the same trenches—that over time the pair learned to read each other’s body language and understood each other beyond mere gesture or spoken command, that their emotions ran up and down the leash, binding the two intimately together.

After learning of this unique bond, I wanted to try to capture that intimate psychological connection on the page, giving birth to Captain Tucker Wayne and his war dog, Kane. To do this pair justice, I visited Lackland Air Force Base where war dogs are raised and trained. While in Baghdad, I also met a fellow veterinary school classmate who was with the U.S. Veterinary Corp. He was able to give me great insight into the technology, the psychology, and even the aftermath of such a unique fighting team: from the Kevlar-reinforced K9 Storm tactical vest worn by the dogs to their amazing communication gear that allows handlers to see through their dogs’ eyes. I also learned about how PTSD afflicts not only the soldier but also the dog, and how efforts are being done to combat and treat both sufferers.

Lastly, after three decades of working with dogs as a veterinarian, I knew I wanted to portray these stalwart war heroes as they really are—not just as soldiers with four legs, but as real dogs. Through scenes written from the war dog’s point of view, I wanted readers to experience what it’s like to be such a warrior—to be in their paws—to paint an accurate portrayal on how such dogs perceive the world, how they function in combat, how they cope with loss and grief. I hope I did them justice.

I have been to Alaska and its vast parks and tundras, but I’ve never ventured out into the ice fields that extends toward the North Pole - though I have flown over them in a Twin Otter bush plane.

Yes, and it ties into a great mystery surrounding Nikola Tesla. Tesla was a visionary genius, and later in life in The New York Times, he made the bold claim that he had discovered a new, and never-before-seen energy source, one that would change the world. But he never revealed his secret, so when he died, the U.S. government cleared out all of his papers and research journals, including notebook that Tesla had warned his nephew to secure upon his death. All of Tesla’s confiscated work was reviewed by the National Defense Research Committee, a group led at the time by John G. Trump, the uncle of a certain New York real estate magnate. Eventually, pressured by Tesla’s nephew, those papers were returned to his family, but not all of them. One conspicuous piece was missing—that notebook. In my book, it’s found.

It’s because the first human-like intelligence will not be idle. Instead, it will prove to be very busy. It will quickly—in weeks, days, maybe even hours—evolve into an incomprehensible superintelligence, a creation far superior to us, one that will likely have little use for humans. When that occurs, there is no way of predicting if this new superintelligence will be a benevolent god or a cold, destructive devil.

I believe there is much more research that needs to be done concerning the First Nations People. The currently accepted date for when humanity first migrated to Australia is between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago. But that timeframe has come into question by the recent uncovering of older hunting and fishing camps. Likewise, I could only glancingly cover the rich and diverse belief systems of the First Nations People. But what is covered in this book is based on true Aboriginal stories and legends. Similarly, the conjectures and conclusions found within this novel, as astounding as they may seem, are based on true research.

I spend about three to four months researching a book: reading, interviewing, taking notes, traveling. Still, every page I write still seems to need that extra bit of fact-checking. Research never stops as I begin to write. The two are intricately connected.

Sure. I was raised Roman Catholic, so feature a Catholic priest in this book who is fascinated (as am I) by a Jesuit father who lived during the seventeenth century. His name was Athanasius Kircher and he was considered to the Leonardo Da Vinci of the Jesuit Order. He was a master of a hundred disciplines: medicine, geology, and Egyptology, engineering. He was also a bit of an adventurer, even having himself lowered by ropes into Mount Vesuvius shortly before an eruption, all so he could better understand volcanoes. I found his mix of science and faith fascinating. And in The Bone Labyrinth, our heroes will be following breadcrumbs left behind this man, including the very real possibility that Atlantis existed—and where it might be found today.

That is one of the things that make each Indy movie so unique. Besides the central MacGuffin – the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, the Crystal Skull – it's the varied and wonderful cast of supporting players. They aren't simple cardboard cutouts, proverbial spear holders. They are conflicted, real people with pasts that are intimately woven into both the story and Indy's past. And to write scenes – especially from Mac's perspective – allowed me to explore a complex and unique character in more depth than time allows on the big screen.

You wily readers — you always ask me that! That's a tough question. I live and breathe my characters' lives. Their story rolls through my head like a movie each time I write, so in my mind, they’d all make great summer blockbusters. I'd be hard pressed to pick a novel that I'd most like to see made into a movie. Each book has moments that I'd love to see on the big screen — some are heart-pounding chases or Industrial Light and Magic-worthy special effects, some are moments when characters have a flash of clarity, revelation, or understanding, and some are intensely personal, emotional exchanges between the characters (including those with fur and paws). I just hope that should any of my novels be brought to the big screen, it’s done by a team that is enthusiastic about the story and characters.

I've always been fascinated by the mythology surrounding the Crystal Skulls, especially the Mitchell-Hedges skull found in Belize in 1926. It became known as the Skull of Doom because of a curse supposedly around it. Other skulls have been found throughout South America…some fake. But some true artifacts demonstrate an astounding crystal-sculpting technology for the pre-Columbian time period. It is such mysteries, represented by such an iconic symbol – the crystal skull – that makes for a perfect object to build a story around.

When I was researching this novel at the start of the pandemic in early 2020, virologists were expressing their fear that Covid could be Disease X. It’s what terrified all health experts—and me. Disease X is the name for a disease pathogen that modern science has no preventative or cure against, one capable of spreading rapidly. Covid came frighteningly close to that especially from a genetic standpoint. According to those virologists, we escaped from what could have been far worse. We need to be better prepared next time. And trust me, there willbe a next time.

Specifically the threat posed by invasive species, those foreign invaders to our shores. We’ve already seen how the Everglades are being overrun by pythons that are wiping out our native bird populations. Then there are Asian carp in our lakes and rivers doing the same to native fish. And it’s not just here in the States. Other examples of invasive species are plentiful and global. Most of these cases are from due to accidental contaminations. What worries Homeland Security is that some hostile power might weaponize such a species and use it as means of waging war. Especially as such a threat is nearly impossible to defend against. It’s just such a frightening scenario that I explore in The Demon Crown.

Both the idea and the outline for this first work came from one kernel: “I’m going to take five characters, drop them two miles underneath the Earth, through in a few monsters, and shake vigorously.” From there, I only had to figure out what characters, where the deep hole was, what type of monsters, and how to shake the Earth vigorously. Simple!

James: That’s an easy one (and I know Rebecca would agree): Elizabeth Bathory. She was so deliciously amoral how could Rebecca and I not grow to love her and give her a larger place in the story. I think Elizabeth kept us both on our toes, while challenging our characters just as much.

Rebecca: Exactly. Elizabeth Bathory was fascinating. She was largely amoral and served no one but herself, but she also had a protective side for both Tommy and Rhun. It was interesting watching her balance those two aspects of her personality, and it was great fun to write someone who just did whatever she wanted regardless of the consequences. Her role grew from book to book, probably because that’s what she wanted.

I always considered writing as a way to write-off trips. For DEEP FATHOM, I went diving on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and spent a month in China touring the countryside.

During my research for this book, I became fascinated by all the ways various cultures view the end of the world. Especially in regard to the visions that are common among them. That said, it is worrisome that there appears to be a growing zealous view that not only are the End Times near—but that we should do everything politically and militarily possible to make sure it happens in our lifetime. That trend is growing in support both here among Western nations, but also across the Islamic world. Even the current Supreme Leader and president of Iran are believers that the End Times are upon us. So, while such apocalyptic cults featured in my novel are fiction, their existential threat is very real.

Moral injury is a shade of PTSD that is still poorly understood. It relates to the shattering of moral and ethical expectations—an injury to someone’s fundamental understanding of right and wrong— and according to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, it can manifest as shame, guilt, anxiety, and anger, along with behavioral changes, such as alienation, withdrawal, and self-harming (including suicide). With this novel, I attempted to share this condition with readers, to get them to better understand the causes and consequences of someone afflicted with this aspect of PTSD. As with most veterans, there is no quick fix. For those afflicted, it’s an ongoing process to find their center again.

Sure. My support for veterans first came about after I participated in a USO tour of authors to Iraq and Kuwait in the winter of 2010. Upon coming home, I knew I wanted to do more. First, I worked with USA Cares, which raises emergency funds for vets in need, then most recently I joined US 4Warriors as an advisory board member. The new charity started as a grassroots effort in San Diego and has since expanded nationwide. Besides helping to promote the social welfare of vets in a wide spectrum of activities, the latest endeavor also involves helping veterans tell their stories...and get published! So as a writer, I’m especially excited as US 4 Warriors expands into this adventure.

Much as I'd love to visit every city and town in the country and beyond, I usually only tour when I have a new book out — the rest of the time I'm busy writing and researching my next book.Because my publisher determines where to send me — based mostly on requests they receive from bookstores, libraries and other venues where books can be sold — the best way to get me to come to you area is to have your local bookstore, library, or other venue contact my agent, Russ Gallen here and make a case for me to visit.

Of course! I always loved that part of the earlier movies where you see the plane coursing across a world map, from one exotic locale to another. And this story is no different. Setting is a character in and of itself. Geography and local mythology play an intimate role in the plot and story. From the remote deserts of the United States, to the strange drawings carved into the plains of Nazca, Peru, to the deep jungles of the Amazon. This story paints a broad canvass.

Rebecca: It was set up as a trilogy, and I think we fulfilled all the promises we made to the readers in the books. The characters have been on a wild journey, but it is complete. That said, there are still some stories to be told in the world of the Sanguines, and we might pick those up again someday.

James: The series was always envisioned as a trilogy, with the potential for future stories set in this universe beyond that. So while the third book does bring the major arc of our characters’ lives and the plot to resounding conclusion, we’ve left a few breadcrumbs that could be picked up down the line for another go-around in this world.

After writing SUBTERRANEAN, where I indulged my interest in caving, I always wanted to do something with my other passion: scuba diving. So at the back of my mind, I was very tuned to plots involving the deep sea. And one day while reading about the mythology of the Polynesian islands and the different theories of migration of peoples through the region, a story slowly arose about a long-lost civilization with an ancient technology that resurfaces to threaten our own.

I personally hate playing that game. Even after ten years, I still have a firm picture in my head of what those characters look like. As I think most readers do. I can’t imagine any current stars playing those roles. But I do love to hear how OTHER people would cast those roles—and sometimes I’m darned surprised by their responses.

Tucker and Kane have appeared in past Sigma novels and in solo adventures of their own. I first encountered such a heroic pairing of soldier and war dog while on that USO tour to Iraq and Kuwait. Seeing these pairs’ capabilities and recognizing their unique bonds, I wanted to try to capture and honor those relationships. To accomplish that, I spoke to veterinarians in the U.S. Veterinary Corps, interviewed handlers, met their dogs, and saw how these duos grew together to become a single fighting unit. I also vetted their stories with former and current handlers to be as accurate as possible. I love Tucker and Kane—and it’s certainly not the last you’ll see of that dynamic duo.

Indeed. Father Carlos Crespi. He was a monk who ran a remote missionary in Ecuador for fifty years, until his death in 1982. But he was also a scientist with multiple doctoral degrees: botany, anthropology, history. Still, he is best known for the vast collection of mysterious artifacts given to him by the natives of the surrounding rainforests. Most of which were made of gold or adorned with precious jewels. They numbered in the tens of thousands. But what was strange was that many of these precious relics bore motifs that made no sense, as they better fit other ancient cultures: Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian. What were they doing being pulled out of the jungles of Ecuador? Where did they come from?

The mystery eventually led to a great search into a cavern system that spanned the Andes, led by a reclusive American hero: Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. His strange enlistment in this venture plays a major part of THE BONE LABYRINTH.

To quote my editor: This book is Sigma’s most frightening adventure to date. And I don’t disagree. The novel starts when a group of scientists stumbles across an island off the coast of Brazil, where all life has been eradicated, consumed and possessed by a species beyond imagination. Before they can report their discovery, the scientists are attacked and killed. Save one, an entomologist, an expert on venomous creatures. This one event soon blows up into a global threat, when the same species is unleashed across the Hawaiian Islands. As people die by the hundreds, it appears the only way to halt the organism’s spread its to nuke those islands. To prevent that from happening, Sigma Force must discover the terrifying origin of the species—and find a way to destroy it. But already the organism is changing, growing, spreading—adapting and surviving every attempt to stop it. So, yes, it is indeed a frightening story—especially so because how real this threat actually is. Even Homeland Security maintains the threat raised in this novel to be a top priority.

Yes. Buried in the heart of the novel is a curse—a curse not cast by any witch but from a danger inherent in the knowledge found within these pages. Once you read this book, you may inadvertently be dooming yourself for all eternity. So read at your own risk.

One only has to read the newspaper to understand and appreciate how prevalent the use of drones has become in modern warfare. Such vehicles are used more and more by all branches of the military, both for surveillance and for aerial attacks. They range in size from the massive Global Hawks to the small Ravens. But even they are only the tip of the iceberg. There is currently an arms race underway to develop new and improved robotic warriors, even those that can operate autonomously. Basically drones that can be sent out to kill with little or no human involvement. This raises a fundamental question: will the use of drones save lives or will the ease of their use—killing from afar—make us more likely to go to war? Will we begin to shoot first and ask questions later? Such moral questions are the subjects I wanted to explore in my latest book.

As a veterinarian, I love to fold animals into my story, and this book is no exception. I feature a young lion cub named Roho, but the emphasis is on the ingenuity of elephants. Elephants have the largest brains of any land mammal. In fact, they even have the same number of neurons and synapses in their cerebral cortexes as we do. And they put all that brainpower to good use. They use tools, are excellent problem solvers, show altruistic behavior, even self awareness. They are great painters, with a canvas done by a Picasso elephant named Ruby at the Phoenix Zoo selling for $25,000. They are also tremendous mimics, able to imitate other animals’ vocalizations, even surprisingly the sound of human speech. So I wanted to feature these great big beasts in my book, to highlight their majesty and intelligence.

Not at all. I tailor each story so a new reader could jump into the series at any point. In fact, only a small fraction of my readership has read my series in order. For anyone interested in this unique set of heroes and the troubles they face, Tides of Fire is a perfect place to jump on in.

It does. In this story, you will learn how truly strange the lunar satellite is. For example, have you ever wondered why, during a solar eclipse, that the shadow of the moon perfectly covers the face of the sun? This happens because the moon is 400 times smaller than the sun, while also sitting 1/400th distance between the earth and the sun. No other planetary moon in our solar system matches this symmetry, not even close. Isaac Asimov described this odd alignment as “the most unlikely coincidence imaginable.”

And that only scratches the surface of the true oddity that circles our planet. By the time you are done reading The Bone Labyrinth, you will never look at the moon the same way again.

James: Rebecca and I actually wrote two short stories connected to this series. “City of Screams” is a prelude into the series, introducing Sergeant Jordan Stone in Afghanistan, serving as a forensic investigator who discovers mythology and science sometimes collide in horrifying ways. “Blood Brothers” was published between the first and second novel, but the bulk of the story takes place during the Sixties, with repercussions in the present, so the book could easily be read as another prelude to the series, while at the same time introducing a major character who first appears in Book Two (Innocent Blood)

Rebecca: I mentioned this earlier (always jumping ahead, I guess). The short stories are set in the same world, but they are not directly related to the events in the trilogy, so you can read them whenever you want during the trilogy, or even as standalone stories.

I dedicated this book to my mother and father, who both recently passed away from complications secondary to Alzheimer's. In fact, my dad passed away while I was writing this book. In my series, the main character—Commander Gray Pierce—has been dealing with similar challenges of aging parents, including a father whose Alzheimer’s has been steadily worsening throughout the series. In this book, all of that comes to a head, as Gray tries to balance his professional and personal lives. It’s something we all struggle with in varying regards, so I think Gray’s struggle—and his shocking decision at the end of the novel—is something that will resonate with readers long after they close the book.

From initial research to completed manuscript, it took a solid year.

While I’m in the depths of writing a book, the characters all inhabit my waking world. They are seldom far from my thoughts. Still, it is necessary to break away and physically separate yourself from the story. I try to spend some time each day at the gym, and on weekends I love to simply vanish into the mountains and hike or bike. Other pursuits I enjoy, though they are often between books as they require more of a time commitment, are scuba diving and caving.

I have an anthology of short stories coming out next September, which includes a brand-new hundred-page novella featuring a pair of characters from the Sigma universe, Tucker and Kane, an army ranger and his military war dog. They’re a dynamic duo who were inspired from a USO trip to Iraq that I took during the last war, where I saw men and women working with their dogs in the field.I love trying to capture that unique bond in print. And, of course, I’m also finishing up next year’s Sigma novel, tentatively titled The Savage Zone—but further details are presently classified.

Sure. My support for veterans first came about after I participated in a USO tour of authors to Iraq and Kuwait in the winter of 2010. Upon coming home, I knew I wanted to do more. First, I worked with USA Cares, which raises emergency funds for vets in need, then most recently I joined US 4 Warriors as an advisory board member. The new charity started as a grassroots effort in San Diego and has since expanded nationwide. Besides helping to promote the social welfare of vets in a wide spectrum of activities, the latest endeavor also involves helping veterans tell their stories...and get published! So as a writer, I’m especially excited as US 4 Warriors expands into this adventure.

This past winter, I launched Cradle of Ice, the second book in my Moonfall fantasy series, and I just completed the third book, A Dragon of Black Glass that’ll be out in 2024. I’m also finishing up the next big Sigma novel, titled Arkangel, that deals with a global hunt across the top of the world, pitting nation against nation in the pursuit of a mythological lost continent and an arcane treasure that could save the world—or doom it.

This past winter, I launched The Starless Crown, the first book in a new fantasy series, and I just completed the second book in that series, Cradle of Ice. I’m also finishing up the next big, sprawling Sigma adventure which will take place in Australia and the U.K., tying together colonial history, aboriginal mythology, and a modern-day treasure hunt for a mysterious artifact that could prove we’re not alone in the universe.

Not at all. I tailor each story so a new reader could jump into the series at any point. In fact, only a small fraction of my readership have read my series in order. So anyone interested in this unique set of heroes and the troubles they face, CRUCIBLE is a perfect place to jump on in.

Sigma Force is a team of former special forces soldiers who have been drummed out of the service for various reasons. But because of special aptitudes and abilities, they’ve been recruited in secret by DARPA—the Defense Department’s research-and-development agency—and retrained in various scientific disciplines to act as field agents for DARPA. Their mission is to protect the globe against various emerging threats. Basically, they’re scientists with guns.

As with the geographical setting, the world view of the time is as much a character in the book as Indy. Where before it was the global threat posed by the Nazis during World War II, this time it's the Cold War…a world of paranoia, rampant suspicions, the McCarthy trials, the execution of the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for spying. Throw into that mix one world-hopping archaeologist with a penchant for stirring up trouble and you have a perfect powder keg for a fantastic story.

Since the first book, I’ve always written to entertain: to get the blood flowing, the heart pumping. One of the best compliments I get about a book is when I hear it kept someone up all night. Then I known I’ve done a good job. But over the years, I’ve learned that entertainment can have a greater impact if it leaves the reader with something to think about afterward, to raise some question, to pique some curiosity. I strive my best to do both. It’s one of the reasons I include a “what’s true and what’s not” section at the end of each book. It points in a general direction for anyone who wants to pursue the details of a book in greater depth.

Tours are planned by my publicist at HarperCollins, who considers many factors in deciding which cities to include each year. These factors include whether I've visited that city before; whether there's a great local bookstore interested in hosting an event; which section of the country we've decided to target for a particular year; and whether we can plug a city into a route that will minimize travel time. We always try to mix together cities of different sizes. I try to visit new cities and regions of the country each year, but it's a big continent and there are some cities I've yet to reach. They are on my list for the future. I love all of America and Canada and I hope to keep writing and touring until I've been everywhere. And then I'll start all over again.

As with the advancements in drone warfare, the modern battlefield is changing in a disturbing way. We are now seeing the lines blurring between military forces and those armies being controlled by corporations—not just private defense contractors (like Blackwater), but also full fighting forces that are being wielded by corporations. When war is being orchestrated in corporate boardrooms, success becomes more about profitability, accountability, and a corporation’s bottom line. It blurs the line regarding who truly is in charge. And this shift in power is changing rapidly. To save money and balance budgets, governments, including our own, are handing more and more military powers over to corporate boardrooms.

This is reintroduction of keystone species into an environment. Such as the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park. It had a dramatic and positive effect on the entire ecosystem. Wolves reduced the number of deer, which allowed overgrazed lands to recover, which allowed trees to grow thicker and taller, which supported increased populations of birds, which has supported a general recovery of biological diversity in the park.

Scientific American estimates we have about 1-2 generations to turn this around. Failing that, we’ll reach the point of no return. As to what can be done, there are very different schools of thought, often in conflict with each other. But it’s up to us.

I love this line by Stewart Brand, the publisher of Whole Earth Catalog:
“We are as gods and have to get good at it.”

Jim: Christian is first mentioned in passing in THE BLOOD GOSPEL. Even in that brief reference in the first book, readers were offered a hint that something was different about him. We knew we always wanted to introduce a “younger” vampire into the Sanguinist fold.

Rebecca: We introduced the older, more experienced Sanguinists in THE BLOOD GOSPEL. Rhun is hundreds of years old, and his mentor, Cardinal Bernard, has been around at least since the Crusades. Even as they live forward in time, their thought patterns and beliefs are based on a very different world. We thought it would be interesting to show what a modern, irreverent Sanguinist might add to the mix. Christian was turned in the late 1960s, so he’s part of the same century as Erin and Jordan. This drives Rhun a bit nuts, which is always fun to watch.

Jim: During the creation of the first book, it was all about world building, creating this landscape where vampires existed and found themselves folded within the cloak of the Catholic Church. It was also about discovering our main characters, how they were going to engage and react. With that all established, we were free to build and expand upon that world and more deeply explore our characters. We initially thought it would be easy, since the groundwork and mythology was already in place, but we quickly learned of a new challenge.

Rebecca: The new challenge was figuring out how the characters had grown and changed as a result of the events in the first book. They all had strong personalities, but they went through a lot in their search for THE BLOOD GOSPEL, and they haven’t had time to process it all.

I did indeed construct EXCAVATION specifically as a lost world novel. My editor even classified my books as “lost race” novels. The germ of this specific novel came from two ideas that merged together.

(1) A lost Incan tribe still surviving up in the Andes

(2) And the possibilities of nanotechnology being used to evolve the human species
I love merging the ancient and the modern, then stirring that pot and seeing what develops. You’ll see this blend in each of my books.

Additionally, I also like to peel back ancient myths and search for the hidden truths behind these stories. In SUBTERRANEAN, it was Aboriginal mythology. In EXCAVATION, it was Incan mythology. In DEEP FATHOM, it was Polynesian mythology.

Being an armchair archaeologist, I'm always fascinated by bits of history that end in a question mark. That's where I love to center stories around. I had heard of Ubar, the lost city of the Arabian sands, a city that is the Koran's equivalent to Sodom and Gomorrah. I knew there was a story there. According to the Koran, the city was populated by wizards and other evil men, and God eventually destroyed the city and buried it under the sands. For the longest time, Ubar was considered just a mythological place....until an amateur archaeologist discovered its existence using ground-penetrating radar and extensive study of the region.

I have, and I desperately want to go back. The landscape is so striking and varied, from its lush gardens trickling with waterfalls to its vast stretches of wind-swept dunes. But more than anything, it's the entire region's mix of history and mythology, religion and superstition, the ancient and the modern. With every step, this strange dichotomy calls out to you....and for a writer, it is pure magic.

All of the past extinctions have been caused by natural catastrophes:

But it was the third that was the worst—and it’s significant. A volcanic eruption during the Permian period (250 million years ago) cast huge clouds of carbon dioxide into the air, causing a greenhouse effect and acidifying the oceans. We’re seeing the same environmental disruption today—and facing the same catastrophic event.

I have a cardboard file box at home where I toss articles and handwritten notes that I collect from reading magazines: National Geographic, Scientific American, Discover, Science, etc. Whenever I read something that makes me wonder “What if....?" it goes into the box. The box is not organized, it's messy. Somewhere down at the bottom there are probably mice nesting. But I love that chaos. Strange and intriguing bits end up next to each other in the box, things I would not have connected together on my own, but the pure randomness of the contents of the box bring them together, and I begin to see how they might connect. Sometimes those connections become stories. At that point, I begin to visualize who might be involved in such a story, and the plot starts to grow.

There are parts of me in all the characters – good and bad. I also borrow traits from friends and family, from people I meet and talk to. I'm always looking for quirks that really flesh out a character. As to Painter Crowe, I think he's more of who I would want to be, than necessarily who I am. But that's one of joys of writing – or reading – for a time, you can be that character.

Jim: I always love dabbling into historical mysteries, those pieces of the past that end in a question mark. In INNOCENT BLOOD, we attempted to explain the “lost years” of Christ’s childhood, that gap in His chronology between the Slaughter of the Innocents by King Herod and Christ’s appearance as a young teenager. Where was He before that? Why that gap in Christ’s history? During our research into this topic, we uncovered many suppositions and tantalizing hints. That’s what I love best about digging into the past (something I think our main character Erin shares): that continuing quest for the truth.

Rebecca: Jim’s right. I tend to be fascinated by ancient mysteries—the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, the Voynich Manuscript—and how people have been affected by their quests for knowledge about these objects.

Both. Technology all by itself is not that interesting. What I find fascinating about new technology is how it challenges a society, physically and morally. Such as with cloning or stem cell research or something we have yet to imagine. That's the fodder for great storytelling. And societies don't form out of a vacuum. Their foundations are based on a history that is oftentimes equal part fact and fiction. Blend these two ingredients, and some great stories emerge that reflect who we are, where we came from, and most importantly where we are heading.

No, it will blow their minds—because it’s all true and verifiable. It’s a single prime number—a number that is not only locked in our genetic code, but it’s the same number that can be found in the unusual symmetries of the earth, sun, and moon. Even stranger, it can also be found in the very first line of the Book of Genesis. But to reveal more would ruin too many of the true and shocking surprises found in The Bone Labyrinth.

But trust me, when you reach the end of The Bone Labyrinth, you will begin to understand the true wonder of humanity and this world.

Rebecca: I was surprised by how easy it was to create the Sanguinist/strigoi mythology by using references to existing religious documents. I don’t think there is a vampiric sect in the Catholic Church, for example, but it does dovetail well with many of their traditions: turning wine into the blood of Christ, wearing hoods during the day, rules on chastity. It’s endlessly fascinating.

Jim: The basic premise started with a simple supposition: If vampires existed, how might have Christ dealt with such a scourge? How might the early Church have been changed? How might it look today? Rebecca and I attempted to answer those questions, which was a great deal of fun, and in the end, like Rebecca mentioned, it was illuminating how much of the trappings of the Church could be folded into the mythology of vampirism.

That Permian extinction knocked out 90% of the world’s species on land and in the seas went extinct, all life balanced on a razor’s edge. It’s only by sheer providence or luck that all life wasn’t extinguished. And we’re headed that way again.

Rebecca: All of them at once, I think. We had already created the supernatural world and the characters that inhabited it, so for the second book we wanted venture further afield in that world and more deeply into the psyches of the characters.

Jim: It certainly had to be all worked out as a whole, almost like a jigsaw puzzle, every piece had to be examined and turned until if fit just right. We thought this was important so that the paranormal elements of the story didn’t overwhelm our characters. Though this series deals with immortal beings and creatures both light and dark, we didn’t want to lose that exploration of the human condition. To touch a reader emotionally, the story and characters must be accessible and relatable. To achieve that required all the elements of the story to work in harmony and as a whole tapestry.

So close, they’ve coined a term for it: DE-Extinction. Researchers could take the intact genome of a living animal—then start making edits and alterations to the DNA, slowing converting it to the genome of a related species that had gone extinct. There are active projects going on all around the world toward this end: Like resurrecting the wooly mammoth from Elephant DNA.

Jake's fate (ie., publication date) is still up in the air. Whenever I get some concrete details--one way or the other--I'll get them posted immediately.

Q: Protective weapon of choice (we hope not a bull whip):

A: My charming personality (okay, I'm doomed).

Q: What you'd do in the face of someone trying to remove your still-beating heart:

A: Run really, really fast.

Q: Craziest stunt:

A: Swimming with sharks. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Q: Favorite sidekick of all time:

A: My golden retriever, Penny.

Q: To what lengths would you go to rescue your favorite hat:

A: I'd let it go. It would just give me another reason to go shopping.

Q: Will you still crave adventure in your AARP years:

A: No doubt. Though maybe I'll skip the fried tarantulas. (I heard they're high in cholesterol.)

Q: Favorite watering hole in exotic locale:

A: Ha! Not a quick answer: The restaurant D'Vijff Vlieghen (translation: The Five Flies). It's located in the cellars of a 17th century building in Amsterdam and serves the best jenever (Dutch gin made out of juniper berries). The typical way to consume jenever is known as kopstott (head butt, a fitting name) where a glass of jenever is followed by a beer chaser. Very potent combination. I think I've just about recovered.

Q: Last Question: How do you feel about snakes?

A: With a little ketchup, they aren't bad.

I was—and it certainly added that timely quality to the novel. It’s a prime example of the unpredictability of near-Earth objects (or NEOs) striking the planet. NASA has currently identified over ten thousand NEOs, but that number is only the tiniest fraction of what’s out there, including what exploded over Russia. That asteroid had the potential kinetic energy of about thirty atomic bombs, but as it exploded in the upper atmosphere, it lost most of that energy before the pieces struck the ground. Still, the shockwave from that midair blast blew out windows and injured over 1,500 people. And it’s not just meteors that are a risk. Comets themselves pose a threat. In fact, sometime next year a comet is due to strike Mars.

My publishers deserve credit for breaking barriers with the mass market editions of my books. With my first book, Subterranean, my publishers took a chance by developing a multiple step-back cover – the first of its kind. They pulled out all the stops when releasing Sandstorm with a lenticular holographic cover, employing a new patented technology. As a writer who delves into new sciences, what could be more gratifying?

The consensus among experts is that we are indeed on the brink of the next great mass extinction, one to rival the asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs. Every hour, three more species goes extinct, totaling to 30,000 species a year. Already we’ve lost ½ of all amphibians, ¼ of all mammals, and 1/3 of all reefs.

On one side there are the conservationists or preservationists, what some refer to as “old-school environmentalism.”

On the other side, there are the geneticists and synthetic biologists who believe we can engineer our way out of this extinction. Right or wrong, this is where a majority of the young scientists are using genetic manipulation and the creation of synthetic life to re-engineer the world.

Considering the fact that the cost of lab equipment and materials has been plummeting for years. What once cost tens of thousands of dollars can be done for pennies now. Even the pace of our ability to read and write DNA increases ten fold every year...which means in ten short years, genetic engineering could be ten billion times faster.

Already a lab has managed to create the first synthetically built cell (2010, Craig Venter). And just last year, biologists engineered an artificial chromosome, building a functional, living yeast from scratch.

But the most astounding advances are two techniques known as EVOLUTION MACHINES.
First is CRISPR-CAS9 technique. With little training, a novice could perform this genetic manipulation technique. The precision of this control has been described as offering researchers the equivalent tool to editing individual letters of an encyclopedia—without making a spelling error.

Second is MAGE AND CAGE (multiplex automated genome engineering and conjugative assembly genome engineering ) discovered by genetic engineers from Yale, MIT, and Harvard. It allows large-scale edits to a genome. It’s this process that holds great promise to revive extinct species or create NEW ones. They could introduce millions of years of evolution within minutes.

We’re already there. It’s being waged by ISIS in the Middle East, by Russia in Ukraine, and by China on U.S. shores. It’s called information warfare—and it goes well beyond mere cyber attacks. For better or worse, everything nowadays is connected and intertwined digitally. This scenario has created a wobbly house of cards, one that could easily be toppled. Nations, including the U.S., are investing billions to establish military commands for this new type of warfare, to learn how to topple a foreign country’s house of cards, while beefing up one’s own. Unfortunately, both Russia and China are already ahead of us in this regard. This story casts a light on how such wars are being fought today—and more disturbingly where it might lead.

I usually start with a “what if?” idea. In the case of Deep Fathom, “what if an ancient power source imbedded on the ocean floor were suddenly activated by the radiation from a solar storm. From that point, I assemble the cast of characters, build in a global crisis, and thread in subplots and internal conflicts. During this time, I research heavily—in libraries, on the Internet, through interviews. Once all is ready, I begin to write.

Rebecca: I answered this one early, didn’t I? Sorry about that. The characters had some intense experiences in the first book, especially Erin, and that leaves a mark. She realized that everything she thought she knew was incomplete—monsters existed in the world and had been leaving their mark on history for thousands of years. This shook up her intellectual worldview, and I think she’s still grappling with it. Plus, of course, the nature of her relationships with Jordan and Rhun changed a lot in the first book, and that makes all of their interactions more complex and emotionally charged.

Jim: Exactly. I always dislike books where characters escape great peril with barely a scratch and have no lasting effect. They get shot in the shoulder on page 4 and are perfectly fine by page 6. And it’s not just the physical aftermath, but the emotional aftermath of such trauma. That’s something we explored deeply in this second novel. Everyone was drastically changed by events in the first book, surviving a trial by fire. Now they have to put their lives back together, while facing a new and even greater threat.

Exactly. The Road to Ubar tells the story of that amateur archaeologist and how he discovered the buried city. The place was eventually excavated and can be visited today. The fate of the city was also revealed during this archaeological dig. In ancient times, a giant sinkhole had opened up under the city and swallowed half the town. It was taken as a warning from God and the place was abandoned by its superstitious inhabitants. Eventually the desert sands swept back over the city, and it vanished into history and mythology. But is there more to the story? You'll have to read Sandstorm to find out.

The last 5 extinctions were caused by natural causes, like massive volcanic eruptions or asteroid strikes. Only this time, WE are that asteroid. After the arrival of man (ANTHROPOCENE—human epoch), the loss of species escalated to 1000 time—some say as much as 10,000 times--that of the natural extinction rate: mostly due to pollution, urbanization, and the global spread of invasive species. So it’s up to us to stop it. “We Homo sapiens act as though we believe we are invincible,” Kolbert writes, “but we’re putting ourselves at risk of obliteration.”

Scientific American estimates we have one or two generations to turn this tide before we go over the proverbial cliff.

James: I’m currently finishing up my next Sigma Force novel (The Bone Labyrinth), which explores the origin of the human species, looking at both where we came from and where we’re headed next. Also, at the end of the year, the second novel featuring the adventures of Tucker and his war dog Kane will debut, titled War Hawk. And there’s another project in the pipeline that I’m not at liberty to talk about yet…unless you ply me with an abundant amount of single-malt scotch.

Rebecca: I have the second book in the Joe Tesla series coming out in February. In The Tesla Legacy Joe Tesla, an agoraphobic multi-millionaire is still trapped in the tunnels under New York City with his service dog, Edison. He inherits a box containing Nikola Tesla’s mysterious papers and things start to fall apart from there. I’m also working on a cheeky detective series with a Scottish thriller writer named Sean Black. The series is about a former child star turned private detective in Malibu. The first one is currently called A is for A$$hat.

Rebecca: I don’t want to give too much away, but the forces unleashed at the end of INNOCENT BLOOD must be battled, and the power contained in both good and evil blood will not be easily contained.

Jim: Yes, there are some huge surprises in store both for the characters and for our readers. Some of them even shocked us. Then again, when you’re dealing with the apocalypse, no one should be safe.

I began the initial research back in 1999, then wrote the novel in the latter half of 99 and finished in mid-2000. Hence, the post-Millennial slant to the opening of DEEP FATHOM.

Jim: The seed for this series came during a trip to a museum in Los Angeles, where I found myself staring at Rembrandt’s painting of “The Raising of Lazarus.” It’s a macabre and dark imagining of this miracle of Christ, and it struck me strange how scared everyone looked in the painting. This moment started me down a road of reflection about early Catholicism, vampirism, and a story began to unfold, a story that examines the line between faith and science. I knew this could be a huge and groundbreaking new mythology, a story so epic in scope that I knew I didn’t want to tackle this alone.

Rebecca: I met Jim at the Maui Writer’s Conference just before my first novel, A Trace of Smoke, was published. He was my instructor in a thriller-writing course and we kept in touch after that. I’d just put the finishing touches on my fourth novel when he called me out of the blue about this series with vampires who live on transubstantiated blood. We spent a long time on that call talking about the world of the Sanguinists and the strigoi. We had very similar visions of that world, and could see what we each would bring to it. The writing process involves a lot of talking on Skype, rewriting, and driving each other generally crazy.

I don’t think so. The story was told in the manner it needed to be told. Okay, maybe one small change. At one point, the main character’s son extols the virtues of the latest PC (a Pentium II, of all things). Of course, that is way out of date by today’s standards. And nowadays, I’ve drank the Kool-Aid concerning Macintosh computers. So that detail would have to change: “Hey, look, Mom, they have a brand-new iMac down here!”

When I was in veterinary school, half of the class was composed of women. Since then, that percentage has continued to grow. So I thought it would be appropriate to tell the story from such a fresh perspective. I also grew up with three brothers…and more importantly, three sisters. When it comes to getting inside the mind of a woman, they keep me honest. They’re still my best first readers. And since I was breaking ground writing a new subgenre anyway—the first veterinary thriller—I thought I’d have a woman take the reins in what is normally a male-dominated genre. But I didn’t want to write a female Rambo. I wanted to flesh out a real woman with a rich history, one tied to New Orleans where the story takes place. So Lorna Polk came into being.

I was fascinated that both of these men died and were buried with great wealth—yet their treasure-filled tombs vanished into history. I knew there was a story to tell. I was also intrigued by a mystery that still confounds historians concerning Attila. In the middle of the fifth century, Attila was about to sack Rome. There was no way to stop his marauding horde. Then the pope rode out from the city with a small entourage and met with Attila in secret. After that meeting, Attila turned away from certain victory and left Italy. What was said at that secret meeting to turn Attila away remains unknown. Until now.

I’ve discovered that there are actually two competing schools of study when it comes to the search for immortality. On one side, scientists are looking at moving man into machines, moving our consciousness into a synthetic arena. Scientists in Switzerland right now are working with IBM to create the first virtual human brain and say they are about a decade off from achieving this goal.

On the other side of the scientific fence, researchers are also looking at moving machines into us: basically replacing our failing parts with artificial organs. We already have synthetic pancreases and mechanical hearts, and these scientific advancements continue to accelerate, especially with the explosive growth of nanotechnology, which involves engineering at the atomic level.

In Bloodline, I shine a light into both of those shadowy arenas--into some truly inspiring and scary realms--while also revealing an even more terrifying project, a third path to immortality, one tied to our own genetic code.

She does. Jack Menard is an elite member of the Border Patrol. And like Lorna’s family, he has roots in the New Orleans area. But unlike Lorna’s history of plantations and Garden District mansions, his family is Cajun and have their roots buried deep in the bayous and swamps of that region. And though the characters come from two different worlds, they also share a dark history from their youth, one they sought to keep secret. But some secrets refuse to stay buried.

Something is definitely going on, something beyond our current understanding. One of the scientific phenomena explored in this novel is the human-animal bond—the strange and deep affinity humans have for animals, an affinity that goes beyond mere affection or need for companionship. The presence of animals has a profound effect on people: petting a cat triggers an immediate drop in blood pressure, animals brought into hospital wards boost immune responses in patients and accelerate healing times. Yet, it remains a mystery why we have this bodily reaction. Current research is exploring for the roots of this strange bond. In this novel, I offer my own theory. But to tell you more would ruin the story.

I don’t think any writers spin story and character out of thin air. We draw upon people we know, upon stories we’ve heard. I’ve also done exhaustive research into these lost cultures to try to create the most authentic characters possible, including that of the young Nefertiti.

I was raised Roman Catholic and attended Catholic school until my high school years. While fundamentalist Christians seem to have a problem balancing faith and science, especially when it comes to the debate concerning Evolution and Creationism (or Intelligent Design), the Vatican has never seen a problem balancing these two extremes. Evolution is advocated and taught at all Catholic schools and universities as a biological and real force, leaving the creation of the soul to God.

It is this balance I've always tried to maintain in my life and endeavors, including the debates waged in Black Order. And while I personally believe that morality must be balanced with the pursuit of science - whether it be regulations against animal cruelty or such atrocities as human experimentation by the Nazis - I firmly abhor the present attempts to shackle scientific thought and research on the basis of religious belief. To declare certain lines of research as to be sacrosanct because of religious dogma will only stifle what makes America great - and that's our continual pursuit of new frontiers, both geographically and scientifically. To strangle that is to cripple progress.

I believe, like many scientists, both now and through the ages, that balance can be achieved. It was even Einstein who said "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

Going back to the time of Galileo, science and religion seem to be at odds, drawing lines in the sand that dared not be crossed. And I think this divide has grown wider and deeper as of late. But I think it's high time this gap be filled in with common sense, something sorely lacking in much of today's debates.

The hope for our nation and our world lies within our ability to innovate and move forward technologically. We've been losing ground, as test scores in science and math have dropped precipitously. It's time for knowledge, exploration, and scientific inquiry to be respected and nurtured in this next generation.

But that said, it does not mean we go blindly forward without considering consequences. The dangers of rampant technology and unregulated science are featured predominantly in my novels. But it's not the cogs and gears that make for a great story, it's the way these questions test our morality and our mettle as a society. There must be balance.

Some of mankind's greatest innovators and scientists have been people of deep faith. The two are not mutually exclusive. There is common ground and it's called common sense.

Definitely. I’ve been living and breathing these characters for going on a decade. We’ve seen them grow, have children, face the challenge of balancing work with family, and deal with losses. While the Sigma team is chocked full of talented and dedicated people, they are still people with real-life challenges alongside the world-spanning adventures. In this book especially, those two worlds collide in a harrowing manner for one of my characters. To me, that’s what makes these characters feel so alive in my heart. They are not a static team who run into adventure after adventure. Instead, they change, they mature, they get life-altering injuries—and yes, they also die. It’s that fragility, that mortality, that breathes life into a character.

As with the case at ACRES, innovative research into genetics can be of great benefit, holding the potential to save hundreds of species from extinction. But with all such technologies there are risks of abuse. It’s one of the themes I love to explore in fiction, to look beyond the cogs and wheels of new technologies and explore the moral implications of abusing that technology. And such a challenge is not unique to this century. I open this novel with a very telling quote from H.G. Wells: The study of Nature makes a man at last as remorseless as Nature. It’s a question faced with any scientific inquiry: where to draw the lines. In my novels, I love to to step over those lines and explore the strange and dangerous territory on the far side.

It is indeed. Over a thousand people have had rare-earth magnets implanted at the edges of their fingertips, that vibrate in the presence of electromagnetic fields. It allows them to experience electrical fields in amazing ways. Those I’ve interviewed describe these fields as having texture, shape, rhythms, and even colors. They can sense the flow of electricity through wires, or “feel” a hard drive that is malfunctioning, or even diagnose a misfiring carburetor. It opens up an entirely new way of experiencing the world. And once accustomed to them, it’s apparently hard to go back. Many say they feel blind without them. It definitely is a new world.

Yes. I was an exchange student in Germany during high school. I spent a summer in southern Germany (around Freiburg) and in northern Germany (in Jever). And I had a chance to explore several cities in between. I've been back several times since.

For decades, the male action hero has dominated the domain of adventure thrillers. The role of women was relegated to the damsel in distress or the romantic foil. In my novels, I've always attempted to even the playing field, to create strong female characters that are as integral to the resolution of the central conflict as any of the men. Yet, at the same time, I don't ignore the dynamism of such a relationship, both physically and emotionally. What is an adventure without a thread of romantic conflict? It's the stuff of great story!

Research has always been an important element in my novels and even more so in Bloodline. The first recorded use of war dogs go back to 4000 BC, to the Egyptians who used them in battle. But the modern use of dogs in the US military really started in WW I. Since then, dogs have become an integral part of the U.S. military. Including the dog, Cairo, who was involved with the takedown of Osama Bin Laden.

About a year and half ago, I was lucky enough to participate in a USO tour of authors to military bases in Iraq and Kuwait. There, I saw several of these war dogs in action. I was also able to meet and talk to a veterinary school classmate of mine who works with the veterinary corps out in Iraq. After that encounter, it got me thinking about writing this book, of honoring these unique war heroes on the page.

Jim - Christian is first mentioned in passing in THE BLOOD GOSPEL. Even in that brief reference in the first book, readers were offered a hint that something was different about him. We knew we always wanted to introduce a “younger” vampire into the Sanguinist fold.

Rebecca - We introduced the older, more experienced Sanguinists in THE BLOOD GOSPEL. Rhun is hundreds of years old, and his mentor, Cardinal Bernard, has been around at least since the Crusades. Even as they live forward in time, their thought patterns and beliefs are based on a very different world. We thought it would be interesting to show what a modern, irreverent Sanguinist might add to the mix. Christian was turned in the late 1960s, so he’s part of the same century as Erin and Jordan. This drives Rhun a bit nuts, which is always fun to watch.

Swimming with sharks. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

One of the dangers of fantasy writing is not letting the “magic” of your world overrun your characters and plot. Magic must have limitations, rules, and costs. It is one weapon among many and should not be the sole driver of a plot. And the best weapon of all? It’s not a magic ring or wand. It’s the wit, wisdom, and heart of the hero. That’s the real magic I strive for in each book.

Jim - During the creation of the first book, it was all about world building, creating this landscape where vampires existed and found themselves folded within the cloak of the Catholic Church. It was also about discovering our main characters, how they were going to engage and react. With that all established, we were free to build and expand upon that world and more deeply explore our characters. We initially thought it would be easy, since the groundwork and mythology was already in place, but we quickly learned of a new challenge.

Rebecca - The new challenge was figuring out how the characters had grown and changed as a result of the events in the first book. They all had strong personalities, but they went through a lot in their search for THE BLOOD GOSPEL, and they haven’t had time to process it all.

It was a daunting task. I think my mind is too wired to think of “story” in a longer format. To restrict this tale to one character, one setting, one goal was a challenge. I wanted this story to “feel” like a full Sigma international thriller. So I did my best to make Paris come to life as a character. I threaded in a bit of its mysterious history, added a smidgen of strange science, and crafted a larger danger looming over the more intimate threat. I hope this story captures the essence of a Sigma novel in a tight, little package.

I heard rumblings from several colleagues in the field of evolutionary biology (one of my studies in college). All know my personal stand that evolution is well supported and a real force in nature. As a veterinarian, trained in the anatomy and physiology of a wide range of animals, from tarantulas to horses, I've had my hands deep in the stuff of life. To me, evolution was as plain as the difference between a Chihuahua and a Great Dane. In fact, one of the reasons I began formulating this novel was an objection against the trend to stifle scientific thought, specifically the banning at certain IMAX theaters of films that portray evolution in a positive light.

So it has come as a shock to many at the conclusions I've reached in Black Order, employing some of the cutting edges of scientific thought, specifically along the lines of quantum physics. And I welcome any debate on the matter. It is only through such deliberations - heated and otherwise - that new ideas can be forged.

I definitely have an overarching plot line to the series. I know how it all ends, and I have outlined the main stepping-stones, across a vast and ever-flowing river, to get there. Yet, half the fun of writing is filling up those unknown spaces in between. That’s where the true magic of storytelling unfolds.

I enjoy writing them all. Each has their own unique flare: Gray’s intensity, Kowalski’s humor, Monk’s good nature, Seichan’s internal conflict, Painter’s craftiness. They are like an extended family, and I enjoy visiting with each one of them.

In one word: yes. To tell more would ruin the fun.

Sigma Force is an ultra-secret cadre of ex-Special Forces soldiers recruited into DARPA (the R&D arm of the US Military) and retrained into specific scientific disciplines. They're what I like to call killer scientists…who are smarter than Bond and twice as deadly. Is the organization real? If I answered that, I'd have to kill you, of course.

My golden retriever, Penny.

Jim - The story came about after I viewed a museum exhibit featuring the work of Rembrandt. I was struck by his painting of “The Raising of Lazarus.” I thought it strange how everyone in the painting looked frightened, and this started me down a road of reflection about early Catholicism, vampirism, and a story began to unfold. I knew this could be a huge, groundbreaking new mythology, a story so epic in scope that I knew I couldn’t tackle this alone. It was during that time that I was reading Rebecca’s novel, A Night of Long Knives. I always loved her atmospheric storytelling and knew it could be the perfect match for this story.

Rebecca - Jim called to ask me if I was interested in collaborating on a project. When I asked for details, he said he couldn’t give me any. I asked if he could answer yes or no questions, which brought a ten-second pause before he totally caved and told me everything about The Blood Gospel. Obviously he was not meant to withstand that kind of brutal interrogation. The premise and the world were so intriguing and controversial, I said yes immediately.

Challenges? Sure. This series is for an entirely new audience and requires some streamlining of plot, but overall it’s been a pure joy to go with Jake on these adventures.

Jim - It’s one of the best things about collaboration: we each bring a unique skill set to the table. Scenes where I know I perhaps am more deft (ie., action), I handle first. Likewise, Becky’s skill at characterization and atmospheric historical descriptions, I let her run with it. But after that, we each take each other’s work and tweak it in new and surprising ways that neither of us could have done alone.

Rebecca - Since we’re two people, more ideas come out and the books end up going in a direction I don’t think either of us would have found on our own. Luckily, he’s very open and easy to work with and has never once said “that’s the stupidest idea ever,” because I think you need to feel safe to throw out any idea at the beginning and see what sticks.

I wanted someone mysterious, powerful, and strangely connected to our young hero. So I have Kalverum Rex--the infamous Skull King--armored in shadows and seldom seen on stage. So far we know he is a powerful alchemist who started dabbling in dark arts involving blood and terror. As the series progresses, more and more will be revealed about who and what the Skull King is.

I’ve always enjoyed fantasy books where a foreign/ancient language comes to life and plays a vital role in the story -- like the elvish script found in Lord of the Rings. So I painstakingly created my own language: the lost alphabet of the Atlantis race. There are many more surprises locked within that script – including secret messages imbedded into the book for the avid code-breakers out there.

Despite the Vatican's code of silence on this matter, painstaking research by David Alvarez resulted in a detailed treatise on this subject: Spies in the Vatican: Espionage & Intrigs" type="text/javascript"> ue from Napoleon to the Holocaust. The author's main source for this book came from an American Jesuit, Robert Graham, who spent decades in Rome investigating espionage. And I find it intensely interesting that shortly after Robert Graham's death, the Vatican ordered all his research papers sealed and returned to Rome. It seems the code of silence still continues.

All the dinosaurs referenced in the novel were indeed real--though that doesn’t mean I didn’t create a few fantastical creatures to populate this prehistoric world, too. I’ve always considered myself an armchair archaeologist (I think this should actually be paleontologist; an archaeologist studies peoples and cultures, a paleontologist studies other life, ie animal and plant), so all things saurian--great and small--have always fascinated me.

I actually stumbled upon this mystery while doing research for my earlier novel, Map of Bones. While exploring the history of Vatican spies in Rome, I came upon an intriguing footnote. Some scholars believe that the Polos' journey to China was not a random bit of trade exploration, but a plot by the Vatican to spy upon the Mongol forces in the Far East, to determine China's strengths and weaknesses (which is also touched upon in The Judas Strain). I followed this thread and came upon the mystery of Marco's lost fleet. And while this didn't fit into the plot of Map of Bones, I knew I wanted to explore this in a future novel. So over the past three years, I've been growing that seed of a mystery into the current novel.

Rebecca - Jim had a lot of stuff already in place—a long outline, the first 150 pages or so, and a full proposal. We had various meetings on the phone and Skype to sort out the tone of the book, more character details, etc. We wrote up a World Bible that clearly defined the world, the characters, and the plot. And then I started going through his outline and hacking and slashing and rewriting, and we sent pages back and forth. He was very patient about that, and I tried to be patient when he hacked and slashed on my stuff. For the record, he’s more patient than I am. Or he’s better at lying about it.

We were both ready to throw things out, add things in, do whatever was necessary to write the best book we could. In the end, I would read bits aloud to my husband, and he'd sometimes ask "who wrote that?" and I often couldn’t tell him.

Jim - I don’t think either of us could have written this story alone. It was a great synergy of ideas, talents, with each bringing our best skill set to the forefront, while challenging each other at every step of the way. And I agree with Becky. At this point, I can’t say which one of us wrote what.

Ah, as a lover of all creatures great and small, I’ve had so much fun creating the fantastical animals (even some flesh-eating plants) that populate these books. But I also try my best to ground them in reality, drawing on my knowledge of all the world’s animals to imagine beasts that seem as real as they are strange.

Rebecca - Jim is much meaner to them physically. So, once we’ve beaten the crap out of some character and they’re lying there bleeding, Jim’s always dragging them up to do one last heroic thing. I’m all, “can’t they have a tiny break right here?” and he’s always “Nope. The world needs saving. Up you go!” Makes me grateful he’s not a Boy Scout leader.

But emotionally, I’m much meaner to the characters than Jim is. He’s fine decapitating them, but when it comes to being mean to them psychologically, he’s a little less gung ho.

Jim - Again that’s why we work so well together: I grind my characters through the gristmill physically; she does the same emotionally. Then like two dysfunctional parents, we try to pick up the respective pieces of our character’s lives, dust them off, and point the way forward.

Rebecca - Writing a book is a very intimate process. It’s not all “which word goes here” or “what’s the coolest way to kill a massive enraged black bear?” I mean, there’s a lot of that too. But it’s also a lot of talking about sex and death and what would a character do if you dragged them through the worst experiences in their life, what would it mean, how would they be changed? And you can’t talk and write about that without revealing a lot about yourself. So, for me, it was a giant scary trust exercise. Because, when I write alone, I’m just talking about those things inside my own head, and I know the people in there really well. At this point, Jim is practically a voice in my head too, so I think the trust exercise worked.

Jim - Being my first collaboration, too, it was a learning curve about how “open” to be about the depth necessary to tell this story. Prior to this project, writing has been a solitary experience, where the best and worst could be kept under wraps and dabbled with in private. It took a while to reach that stage with each other where we could drop our guards with one another: to be brutally honest, emotionally sincere, and willing to trust. But I think any true collaboration has to cross that Rubicon.
Since your book was written by a man and a woman, do you ever get into arguments about whether a woman (or a man) would or wouldn’t say something?

Rebecca - Not really. I used to make a note of it and go ask my husband, but he always agreed with Jim, so I eventually gave up on that and decided that maybe, as a man, Jim actually does know more about how they think than I do.
Jim: And to be honest, this didn’t come up too often. Once we workshopped the characters together, hashing who they are, their individual distinct voices came through, and there was no going back.

With a little ketchup, they aren't bad.

Whatever music you liked in high school is the music you like the rest of your life. I think the same applies to books. What I liked at 13, I still love today: those exciting, pulp adventures that give you a good story, a few chills, and at the same introduce you to a new world – just like Jake Ransom and the Skull King's Shadow.

The story here is more linear, but is otherwise not much different. I don't think it serves to write down to kids. I think a well-told tale will appeal to any age.

I hope with an open mind. When it comes to scientific progress, debate is healthy for the generation of new ideas. It must not be stifled - either by those who hold deeply religious beliefs or those who latch onto scientific dogma to the exclusion of all else. Both are equally as damaging to the process.

And when it comes to human consciousness, science still struggles to discover its full secret. Is our brain really some form of quantum computer? Where is the line between the gray matter of our brain and the human soul? And why did it form? The theory proposed within the pages of Black Order offers a possible solution, one that is already gaining credence among neurologists and other scientists. Within the pages, I offer a way to explain scientifically how prayer works - and in such a way, I can think of no better way of balancing faith and science.

I’ve taken fencing lessons, but not Tae Kwon Do. That said, next to my veterinary clinic was a Karate school, and I talked to the teachers there extensively about how to fight, defend, and master basic techniques.

Similar to my adult novels, I love to weave real world facts into the fantastical. This novel – which centers on the ancient Mayan civilization – required months of research, including trips down to the ruins of Chichen Itza and Tulum in Mexico, and to a set of newly excavated ruins in the jungles of Belize.

While I certainly enjoy a bit of magic and strange science (which you'll see in this story), I also love the Everyman Hero. A character with no super powers, no James Bond gadgets…who must survive by his wits alone against all odds, against all challenges. And that's Jake in a nutshell.

I did. It was a great honor to be invited to participate in Operation Thriller. I got a chance to visit and thank the wounded warriors at Bethesda and Walter Reed military hospitals—then flew off to Kuwait and Iraq to visit bases throughout the Persian Gulf. I was able to experience a sliver of life out there: from wearing thirty-pound flak jackets while boarding C-130 transport planes to sharing stories with fire-fighting crews, explosive ordnance disposal units, and the teams that control unpiloted drones. And so much more. It was a life-altering experience, one I will cherish always.

Any thriller involving religious history and mysteries is going to be compared and contrasted with Dan Brown's juggernaut. And while it's nice to be tied to such a phenomenon, my book is very different - think more adventurous and romantic. Map of Bones has been described by one reviewer as a cross between The Da Vinci Code and Indiana Jones. Besides all the religious overtones, scientific speculation, and intrigue, it's also a nonstop wild chase around the Mediterranean through dank tombs, ancient ruins, crumbling palaces, and the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

While there might be some regulation for labs within the United States, once you cross the borders it becomes a scientific free-for-all out there. With so much government money currently being poured into private military contracts—both to defense contractors and to the broader scientific community—competition has grown fierce and with it come abuses: including corporate espionage, vandalism, outsourcing to third-world countries to avoid regulations and safety standards, and unfortunately even darker crimes. While Ironcreek Industries was invented for this novel, its abuses are far from fictional.

Jim - I always love dabbling into historical mysteries, those pieces of the past that end in a question mark. In INNOCENT BLOOD, we attempted to explain the “lost years” of Christ’s childhood, that gap in His chronology between the Slaughter of the Innocents by King Herod and Christ’s appearance as a young teenager. Where was He before that? Why that gap in Christ’s history? During our research into this topic, we uncovered many suppositions and tantalizing hints. That’s what I love best about digging into the past (something I think our main character Erin shares): that continuing quest for the truth.

Rebecca - Jim’s right. I tend to be fascinated by ancient mysteries—the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, the Voynich Manuscript—and how people have been affected by their quests for knowledge about these objects.

How can it not? Scientific exploration regularly tests society’s moral compass. Is human cloning good or bad? What about stem cell research? At every turn, the fringes of science test a society—morally, spiritually, and economically. And at the accelerating pace of such exploration, we are quickly outstripping our abilities to rein in our advancements or to adequately judge where that knowledge will take us.

And such questions are wonderful fodder for a thriller to explore. Because the true challenge of science and technology is not whether its cogs and wheels work, but how it will change us. And even more frightening . . . will we even have a voice in this next evolution?

I believe a novel is made stronger if it touches upon the reality of our world. It’s a tragedy that children have been brutalized and turned into soldiers by warlords in Africa, but it’s also happening on other continents, too. Child soldiers can be found in armies around the world. Often they’re hyped up on drugs and tortured into submission. They’re forced to kill, even murdering members of their own family. And if they’re not carrying guns, they’re often used as suicide bombers, or for sex, or even to walk in front of advancing armies to blow up hidden land mines.

In Bloodline, my characters encounter several of these children, raising the question: how you do fight such an adversary? Or do you? Also one of my characters, Seichan, recognizes herself in these kids. She was torn off the streets as a teenager and turned into an assassin by a shadowy organization. This story offered a perfect opportunity to explore what it means to be a child soldier who has grown up. How do you balance such a past with the present?

Everyone has heard about the black market, that world of clandestine negotiations and illegal transactions. But today, there is also a red market: a term coined to describe the wholesale buying and selling of of human organs. It’s going on all around us. Some legal, much of it illegal. In Bolivia, murderers hunt down victims--not for the money in their pockets, but for the fat in their bodies, which is harvested and sold to European beauty supply companies. In China, prisons have become profitable body farms, turning inmates into a source for new hearts, kidneys, and corneas, all to be sold to the highest bidder. It is just such a marketplace that my characters stumble upon in Bloodline—one happening upon U.S. soil.

First of all, I wanted to honor these unique American heroes. Tucker Wayne is a former captain with the army rangers. After two tours of duty in Afghanistan, he leaves the service disillusioned after a bloody battle. Aided by members of his own unit, Tucker steals his war dog, Kane. Since then, Tucker has been adrift in the world with Kane at his side. After all he had seen in Afghanistan, he needed new horizons, new vistas, but mostly, he had a drive to keep moving. And it’s at that time when Tucker and Kane run afoul of kidnappers who have taken the daughter of the U.S. president hostage.

What I liked best about exploring this pair’s unique relationship is a phrase commonly used by military war dog handlers—It runs down the lead—describing how the emotions of the pair became shared over time, binding them together as firmly as any leash. And it’s that bond and ability for the two to operate as one that I wanted to explore in this novel.

Rebecca - I was surprised by how easy it was to create the Sanguinist/strigoi mythology by using references to existing religious documents. I don’t think there is a vampiric sect in the Catholic Church, for example, but it does dovetail well with many of their traditions: turning wine into the blood of Christ, wearing hoods during the day, rules on chastity. It’s endlessly fascinating.

Jim - The basic premise started with a simple supposition: If vampires existed, how might have Christ dealt with such a scourge? How might the early Church have been changed? How might it look today? Rebecca and I attempted to answer those questions, which was a great deal of fun, and in the end, like Rebecca mentioned, it was illuminating how much of the trappings of the Church could be folded into the mythology of vampirism.

From my research into both sides of the debate, I came across a unique theory: one advocating how the study of subatomic particles sheds new light on the mechanism of evolution, a mechanism beyond natural selection. It delves into the little-explored border between solid reality that we can touch and see and the fuzzy paradoxical world of electrons, protons, and neutrons. Which begs the question:where is the line between chemistry and life itself?

At its simplest (and for further details and elaboration my source material is listed at the back of the novel), new support has arisen that it is the environment itself that draws order out of chaos - first a replicating protein out of the primordial soup, then life from chemistry, then even human consciousness out of the darkness. But in Black Order, I take this theory - that basically supports evolution - one step further and reveal the possible true face of God.

It's one of the greatest environmental risks with GM crops. Pollen migration and genetic contamination are a real threat. Pollen from GM crops blows in the winds, gets washed into neighboring fields. Some seeds have been found growing as far away as thirty miles. And as native species mix with engineered ones, new hybrids arise. One study states that 67% of U.S. farmland is currently contaminated with genetically-modified plants.

Another example, in 2000, a GM corn called StarLink (a corn not approved for human consumption) ended up contaminating food products across the country. More than three hundred brands. It was suspected of triggering allergic reactions and resulted in a massive recall. The Kellogg Company had to close its production line for two weeks just to clean out the contamination, requiring a government bailout of the industry. So when it comes to playing with Mother Nature, any mistakes could have dire consequences.

As frightening as that all sounds, it's all true. The toxic legacy of the Cold War is still with us today and it's aticking time bomb. There is a lake in the Ural Mountains of Russia that is so radioactive that if you stand at the shore for an hour, you’ll be dead a week later. That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the concepts and details that are incorporated throughout The Last Oracle.

Rafael Saint Germaine came about because this story centers on old family secrets—and by old, I mean a family that can trace its roots to the Middle Ages. And in such aristocratic families—whose lineages are tightly bred—it is not uncommon to see genetic abnormalities crop up among their offspring: hemophilia, cystic fibrosis, and other congenital and birth defects. Rafael suffers from osteogenesis imperfecta, also known as brittle bone disease, which a defect in collagen production, leaving him thin-boned and prone to fractures. I wanted a character who compensates for his physical weakness by honing a sharp and cunning mind, one who can match wits with the best of the book’s heroes. In the end, he is one of the most challenging villains of any of my books.

The Club of Rome is a real organization, a global think tank of scientists, politicians, economists, and business leaders. It formed during the sixties and continues to this day. Their mission is to offer a global perspective on current world crises, specifically those related to environmental issues. In 1972, they came out with a report titled Limits to Growth, where they proved that population growth would inevitably outstrip the world's ability to produce food. Once that happened, their computer models predicted annihilation of 90% of the world's population as a result of starvation, disease, war, and chaos.

This model has been tested by more modern methodology with the same results. How soon will we reach that point? You only have to watch the recent food riots around the world to know we're at that brink already. Can it be stopped? Or are we too late? In The Doomsday Key, I offer a solution if we're brave enough to face it.

I love making my books feel real and “of the moment.” I was also fascinated to learn that the comet—designated Comet ISON—will be the brightest comet to light the night sky in over several millennia. It will be so bright that it will be seen even during the day. I also love how, throughout history, comets have often been harbingers of doom, said to predict the bubonic plague of Europe, the Battle of Hastings, even the death of Mark Twain. And it believed the appearance of Halley’s Comet in 1222 was a major inspiration for Genghis Khan’s decision to head west and conquer much of the known world. So surely the arrival of such a bright comet as ISON this year must be equally significant—and dare I say, earth-shattering.

According to the physicists I visited with at Fermilab outside of Chicago, the answer is likely YES. I learned that the entire universe might be a hologram, a three-dimensional construct based on equations written on the inner shell of the universe. Researchers at Fermilab are currently constructing a Holometer, a device to prove this theory to be true. Likewise, theories of multiple universes already abound, with many different conjectures about how those other universes function, interact, and relate to one another. But the most common consensus by theoretical physicists is that they do exist.

According to the physicists I visited with at Fermilab outside of Chicago, the answer is likely YES. I learned that the entire universe might be a hologram, a three-dimensional construct based on equations written on the inner shell of the universe. Researchers at Fermilab are currently constructing a Holometer, a device to prove this theory to be true. Likewise, theories of multiple universes already abound, with many different conjectures about how those other universes function, interact, and relate to one another. But the most common consensus by theoretical physicists is that they do exist.

Just to offer one example of how unreal reality is (to quote physicist Brian Greene): “If you remove all the space within the atoms making up the human body, every person that’s ever lived would fit inside a baseball.” That’s how little of the world is solid and tangible.

They’re actually all real. Archeologists have uncovered more than two thousand Jewish incantation bowls, dated to the third century. But they’ve also found a few such skulls used for the same purpose, as a warding against demons or for the casting of spells. Two can be seen at the Berlin museum. And in regards to the binding of books in human skin, that was real, too. Some rare books have been found to even include nipples or people’s faces. They range from astronomy treatises to anatomic texts, even including some prayer books. But the strangeness doesn’t stop there. French prisoners during the Napoleonic wars used to craft boats out of human bones and sell them to the British. But then again, I guess everyone needs a hobby.

I personally love to travel to remote corners of the world, to explore those lost edges or seldom traveled landscapes. I also love to ask locals odd questions (“Tell me something no one knows about this place.” “What mystery remains unsolved here?”). It is from such journeys and questions that many of my stories begin. During my travels to Macau, I was struck by its strange mix of European colonialism, Chinese history, and Las-Vegas glitz. And I knew I always wanted to set a story in North Korea and interviewed several people who had firsthand accounts of the strange “ghost town”-like atmosphere of its capital city. And it was the country’s rich history that drew me to Mongolia, with its ties to Genghis Khan.

I believe we are not far off from this possibility (if we're not already there). The new frontier of neurology is the exploration of the brain with more and more sophisticated electrodes, some so small that they can be inserted into individual neurons. Already neurologists have inserted silicon chips into the brains of quadriplegic patients that allow them to manipulate computers to move a cursor, to surf the Internet by their thoughts alone. So how long will it be until we learn to harness the brain's full potential and scarier, how long until we learn to control that in another person?

This came about from an article about developing quantum computers. Only lately - in the past decade - have practical applications been drawn from the fields of quantum physics. Yet, the initial theories arose back at the turn of the century, from the work of Max Planck, the father of quantum theory. Almost simultaneously, Einstein was formulating his theory of relativity. So why did Einstein's theories lead so quickly to the first atomic bomb, yet it's taken until today to seek out practical, real-world applications for quantum theory?

One answer is the Nazis.

During WWII, the Nazis were late at developing any atomic weaponry because they placed less credence on the theories of Einstein - as he was a Jew. Instead, they pursued a different track, one supported by someone with solid roots in the German Fatherland: Max Planck's quantum theory. And some of the newest historical research suggests that the Nazis, buried in secret bunkers, had achieved some significant and amazing successes. But to reveal those now would ruin many of the surprises in Black Order.

I don't think progress can ever be truly stopped - it is as inexorable as evolution itself. As I mentioned above, our exploration of quantum theories is beginning to open doorways leading to new advances. Like the quantum computer, for one. But more than that, it's opening doorways deep into the past, going back to the origin of life, to the first spark of all. And as much as this is a journey inward, it's equally a journey outward, toward the universe as a whole. I think we're heading into one of the most exciting times - where science will push boundaries, where our humanity will be tested, and where new frontiers will open.

The JASONS formed during the Cold War to offer advice and counsel to the Department of Justice. They were initially a band that consisted of physicists, but today, their membership has expanded to almost every scientific discipline and into most branches of the military. Few JASONS would ever speak of their affiliation, and most of their projects to this day are shrouded behind the cloak of Top Secret. But slowly information has been leaking out. One journalist did an in-depth study and interviewed many members of the JASONS and wrote a book titled,The JASONS, the Secret History of Science's Postwar Elite.

Rebecca - All of them at once, I think. We had already created the supernatural world and the characters that inhabited it, so for the second book we wanted to venture further afield in that world and more deeply into the psyches of the characters.

Jim - It certainly had to be all worked out as a whole, almost like a jigsaw puzzle, every piece had to be examined and turned until if fit just right. We thought this was important so that the paranormal elements of the story didn’t overwhelm our characters. Though this series deals with immortal beings and creatures both light and dark, we didn’t want to lose that exploration of the human condition. To touch a reader emotionally, the story and characters must be accessible and relatable. To achieve that required all the elements of the story to work in harmony and as a whole tapestry.

Jim - Distance is a challenge, especially now that Rebecca is in Germany and almost on an opposite daytime schedule than me in the West Coast. But once the logistics were worked out, it flows well. And we both prefer Skype when we talk, so we can see each other. Mostly because my method of communication is half words, half gesturing. And I get to see when Rebecca rolls her eyes when I say something stupid (which is surprisingly quite often).

Rebecca - We do get a lot more done when we’re in the same room together, but with Skype and the Internet and the fact that we send each other a million emails a day, it seems to work out.

I think you've tapped the perfect trio of writers to illustrate my goal. Michael Crichton is a master of the scientific adventure. Caleb Carr is a pure genius at constructing historical mysteries. And Dan Brown has broken unprecedented ground by turning art history and religion into a breakneck thrill ride.

I want to do all this and more. In the world at large, science has its own history, religion has its own mystery, mythology has its own truth. Why can't a new genre encompass all these realities? I intend this series to do just that, to break down the boundaries of genre, to seamlessly blend historical mystery, breakneck thriller, and scientific adventure.

And ultimately I hope the result will not only excite a reader into turning pages, but also move and intrigue the reader to investigate beyond the covers of the books. As I wrote in the Author's Note at the end of Map of Bones, the greatest path to truth is found in the simple adage: Seek and you shall find.

Map of Bones was my attempt to tell a historical thriller set against a backdrop of mythology, Catholicism, and current-day technology. And while I knew in advance my novel would be compared to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, I got the germ for this idea about ten years before the book was published. I came across a text, while vacationing in Rome, about Vatican history and intrigue during the Great Schism where Europe was split by popes and anti-popes and the papacy was driven out of Rome to France. I found this bit of history fraught with possibility. But I didn't yet have the fictional thriller to go with it. Over the course of the following decade, I collated ideas, bits of character, trickles of storyline until the larger story gelled into existence. This became Map of Bones. Still there is another underlying reason I decided to tell this story now. Many thrillers, when they collide with the Catholic Church or the Vatican, paint the Church, faith, and belief in a disparaging light. In Map of Bones, I sought to show the Church and its past in a manner that is realistic and acknowledges some of the Vatican's corrupted past, but that also stresses the role of Church as a fundamental factor in forming Western Civilization. I also wanted to show how faith in all its forms is as part of human nature as our own biology, whether it be the belief in God, a Higher Power, or in the substantive good in mankind.

It comes out next summer (July 2010). In that book, a major storyline that has been building over the course of the series comes to a head, and all Hell breaks loose…in this case, literally. It’s titled The Devil Colony and it’s a huge story.

There are three peoples that have always interested me: the Mayans, the Egyptians, and the Vikings. Not surprisingly, the Jake Ransom series follows this same path. The first book--Jake Ransom and the Skull King’s Shadow--dealt with Mayan mythology, history, and culture. The latest book is all about the Egyptians. And as you might guess, the following book will deal extensively with the Vikings.

I don’t know if belief is the correct word—but I hope it is. It’s an intriguing supposition that I don’t believe has ever been broached before. Yet, it seems so obvious when you look at both the science and philosophy of the world. I’ve already received word from an early reviewer who found much comfort in this new view of the afterlife offered in this book. I hope many others do, too.

Whenever I start a novel, I'm always looking for two things: a bit of science that makes me go "what if?" and a piece of history that ends in a question mark. In this book's case, the bit of history involves a mystery surrounding the people who actually built Stonehenge and the hundreds of other Neolithic stone rings that dot northern Europe. I came upon an astounding new theory that is incorporated into this book, but to tell you more would ruin the surprises.

As to the science, it cuts to the core of a hot debate, one centered on the use of genetically-modified foods and the corporate war going on to gain patents and control of the world's food supply. To give you some hint of the power behind this, I'll refer you to a fateful quote from Henry Kissinger. "Control oil and you control nations, but control food and you control all the people of the world."

But how do ancient stone builders and modern genetic science tie together? The answers can be found within The Doomsday Key.

Raised a Roman Catholic, I was well versed in the trials and tortures of the many saints throughout the ages and the veneration of their bodily remains. But it was only while researching this book that I learned how Catholic canon law requires every chapel or church altar to enclose some form of relic within it. And then I learned further, as mentioned above, that in order to meet this demand, the Vatican maintains its own ‘relics library,' a storehouse of filing cabinets, shelves, and drawers filled with bits of bone or spoonsful of dust.

Why, I wondered. Why this cultish reverence to body parts? The official answer was that the bodies of saints were imbued with the Holy Spirit, and it was this Spirit that was revered after death, not necessarily the physical remains. But as I researched, I wondered if there could be a deeper mystery here. Answering this question became the first step to building the story of Map of Bones.

While my books may cover a breadth of topics, there is always so much more left unsaid. As I mentioned before, my goal is to entertain and leave one with some thoughtful concepts and histories to ponder. But ultimately I'm only scratching the surface. I hope the journey to a deeper understanding starts with my novel and excites readers onto their own paths of discovery.

ACRES is a real facility associated with the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans. The research building is located within a secluded thousand acres alongside the Mississippi River. The main goal of ACRES is to use cutting-edge science to preserve endangered species and hopefully pull them from the brink of extinction. To this end, they employ techniques such as artificial insemination, embryo transfer, even cloning. Back in 2003, they were the first to successfully clone a wild African cat. They named the kitten Ditteaux (pronounced Ditto). I love their sense of humor and knew Lorna would have to work at that facility.

That’s a good question—and the answer is the most startling revelation I discovered while researching this story, something I share within the pages of this book. For in Bloodline, readers will learn a shocking scientific truth about the nature of mankind: That immortal beings already walk among us today.

If you want to know who they are, if you want to learn how to live forever--read Bloodline.

As I mentioned above, the threat is real and it's as current as today's headlines. The world's population is growing exponentially, while our ability to produce food is only growing arithmetically. We're already at that tipping point. By United Nation estimates, over one billion people are currently starving worldwide. The introduction of genetically-modified food-corn that produces its own herbicide, soybeans that can be grown with less water-has definitely helped produce greater yields. In fact, it has helped offset this impending crisis, but for how long and at what cost?

Currently, there is very little regulation when it comes to genetically-modified crops. For example, of the forty GM crops approved last year, only eight have published safety studies. GM crops are a billion-dollar-a-year industry. And as we've seen with the current banking crisis, a lack of regulation opens the way for greed to overwhelm common sense. So it raises the question, what might happen to our nation's food supply when corporations control it? And most frightening of all, it's already happening. Presently in the United States, seventy-five percent of corn grown in America is genetically modified. So we're already there.

The scientific term for “genetic throwback” is atavism. It’s a real phenomenon where a genetic trait, lost for generations, returns in an individual. In this novel, one of the many creatures featured is a python born with reptilian limbs, a throwback to a time before the snake’s ancestor lost its legs. I thought I was making this creature up, but a couple of months ago, I stumbled upon a scientific article about a Chinese snake born with a fully functional reptilian limb poking out of its flank. For the curious, a quick Google search will bring up a picture of this snake. It just goes to show that nature is full of surprises.

I have three sisters who make sure I get those details correct, but also during my USO tour to Iraq and Kuwait, I got a chance to talk at length to women in the field—to hear what it’s like to be a female in the armed services. And that’s something I tried to capture. In many action-oriented books, women are relegated to the role of arm candy for the hero or to function as damsels in distress. Not in my books. Here they fight and bleed alongside everyone else. And I’m always thrilled to hear from female readers who stumble upon my books and share letters or post comments on Facebook about how much they enjoy the stories, often because of the heroic and dynamic women featured in the novels.

My charming personality (okay, I'm doomed).

I am a voracious reader. Not only do I read across a wide gamut of fiction genres, I am passionate about science and history, so find myself perusing scores of nonfiction books. While doing so, I gather thousands of strange little tidbits. Also during the course of researching a novel, I interview several experts in various fields - and I've learned shocking details that defy believability but are indeed true. And I love to share these bombshells with my readers.

That's simple. In fact, I open the book with this fact. During the years from 2006 to 2008, one-third of all honeybees in the United States vanished. Thriving hives were suddenly found empty, as if the bees simply flew away and never returned. The condition earned the nickname Colony Collapse Disorder. This massive and mysterious loss generated sensational headlines and fears. So what truly happened to the bees? With the pages of The Doomsday Key, lies an answer…and most frightening of all, it's true.

Rebecca - Not really. I used to make a note of it and go ask my husband, but he always agreed with Jim, so I eventually gave up on that and decided that maybe, as a man, Jim actually does know more about how they think than I do.

Jim: And to be honest, this didn’t come up too often. Once we workshopped the characters together, hashing who they are, their individual distinct voices came through, and there was no going back.

We'd like to think so. But there continue to be concerns about what mankind will create in the name of science, especially with the lack of regulation in this industry. For example, in 2001, a biotech company called Epicyte developed a corn seed engineered with a contraceptive agent. Consumption of the seed lessened fertility. How might that be misused? What other abuses are already being engineered in secret? And once unleashed into the environment, can it be stopped?

If you recall, one of the main characters in Black Order is Lisa Cummings, who you first met in Deep Fathom. Joe Kowalski was a minor character in Ice Hunt. Turns out, he was the perfect character for a short story in Thriller, an anthology which James Patterson edited. (The story is called "Kowalski's in Love.") Imagine my surprise when he showed up to help out in The Last Oracle. I have a track record of reprising good characters. All I can say about Fiona is ... keep reading.

Genghis Khan was a fascinating and bloody figure, who conquered most of the known world at the time, and his legacy lives on today. Geneticists have determined that 1 out of 200 men living in the world today are genetic descendants of the Great Khan (and this rises to 1 out of 10 in Mongolia). It seems multiple wives and conquering so many countries leaves it mark—at least genetically.

Rain Man-like talent still baffles scientists and has challenged our conception of human mental abilities. What set me on the course to write this book is a quote by Temple Grandin: "If by some magic, autism had been eradicated from the face of the earth, then men would still be socializing in front of a wood fire at the entrance to a cave." It is her contention (one advocated by many historians and anthropologists) that pivotal advancements in human history have come about because of those rare individuals born with savant talents, whose unique way of looking at life have altered the course of mankind. So it made me wonder, what if someone gained control of that power?

In this story, science and magic blend into a world of prehistoric creatures, ancient peoples, and a mysterious lost civilization that has left behind bits of strange technology. But to tell you anymore would ruin some wonderful surprises!

The vault-more formally known as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault-truly does exist. It's basically a Noah's Ark for seeds. The vault is located above the Arctic Circle on a remote island of Norway, buried five hundred feet under a mountain. It houses and protects millions of seeds against a global disaster: war, pestilence, nuclear attack, earthquakes, even climate change. It was because of this reason the seed bank earned its nickname the "Doomsday Vault."

It started with an argument. I have several friends who are Mormons, and at a dinner, I overheard a heated discussion among them about a controversial and contested section of the Book of Mormon: specifically that the Native Americans are said to be descendants from one of the ten lost tribes of Israel. While on face value this seems like a wild claim, and genetics certainly seems to dismiss this possibility, I was intrigued—and it started a yearlong investigation into Native American history, Jewish lore, and the early founding of America. To my total surprise, gathering information from disparate sources, pieces began to fall together in a most startling fashion. Why hadn’t anyone put these pieces together before? Not only were these resources valid and the facts gathered backed by solid research, but they came together so perfectly that the picture that finally came to light had to be true—astoundingly and disturbingly true. It alters all we understand about American history. I knew I had to tell this story.

I’ve always been fascinated with those moments in time where religion and history merge, where mankind’s path makes sudden turns. Being raised Roman Catholic, I was not that familiar with Mormonism, but a part of me always wanted to learn more. When I heard that dinnertime argument among a few of my Mormon friends, I knew this was a chance to educate myself and to begin an investigation that would lead me to such startling conclusions. I interviewed both devote Mormon and those who had abandoned the faith. I read articles by Mormon apologists and non-Mormon historians and geneticists. It’s been a fascinating journey—and I believe that what I learned will shock many readers.

In this novel, I explore the manner in which symbols change and transmute over time, borrowed from one civilization to another. For example, there is an intriguing and startling analysis of the history of the Celtic Cross. It came from a book The Golden Thread of Time by Crichton Miller. It sets up a strong and compelling case that this unusual form of the Christian cross might actually have its roots as an ancient surveying tool, one used to build the pyramids of Egypt and to engineer the precise alignment of ancient stone rings of Britain. I love dabbling with such concepts, where the ancient and the modern blur together.

It all started from a seed of a mystery. As I relate at the beginning of the novel, Marco Polo spent almost two decades in China, along with his father and uncle. Upon the trio's return voyage, Kublai Khan granted the Polos fourteen ships and six hund red men to escort them home. But when they arrived in Italy, the returning Polos were down to two ships and eighteen men. What happened to the rest of the escort? Marco hinted at some mysterious tragedy in his famous book, but he refused to ever say exactly what transpired, even on his deathbed. Such a mystery, I thought would make great fodder for a thriller. What if what destroyed Marco's fleet were to arise again today?

I think it goes back to my pulp roots. Those old scientific adventures blended mystery, cutting-edge technology, and wild action. And that's what I'm doing today, just putting a modern spin and polish on those old pulp adventures.

I always wanted to feature her in a solo adventure. Being a loner, she was perfectly suited for her own tale. This vehicle also offered me the opportunity to explore more about her, while allowing new readers an entry point into the series. Plus her story allowed me to fill in a “gap” in the backstory to The Devil Colony.

I had a great fun researching this novel set in my own backyard (so to speak). For the past decade, I’ve been fielding questions from readers about setting a Sigma novel within the United States. But I knew it had to be the perfect story, a novel thrilling enough to justify coming home. I’ve been searching for that story for about five years, and when I finally discovered it, the book still took me a full two years to write. It’s one of the biggest and most shocking of my novels. It took me trekking across the country and back, from Washington, D.C. and Fort Knox out east, to Salt Lake City and Yellowstone National Park out west. I interviewed Mormon scholars, read scientific and historical abstract, and studied ancient petroglyphs. It is a story never told—but one that needs to be finally revealed after two hundred years of secrets.

It's hard to write adventure without some violence. And yes, sometimes it does take fire to fight a fire. But what I also like to do in my novels is to get into the heads of the villains of the piece, to explore their own justifications. Because even a villain is a hero in his or her own mind. I love to take a reader on an arc from hating the villains, to understanding them, to perhaps being even upset when they're killed. If I can pull that off, I've done my job well.

I make another statement in the novel. To paraphrase, if we push Nature, Nature pushes back. We've only been on this planet a short period of geologic time, yet we've committed an amazing amount of abuse for such a young species. Someday soon we may be slapped back. Dominance today does not guarantee survival. There's a lesson in the fate of the dinosaurs. Nothing is permanent in this world. Life is change.

For years, readers have contacted me and asked questions about various cast members from my earlier books. What became of Ashley and Ben's baby after Subterranean? What is the next port of call for the crew of the Deep Fathom? What was incubating in the tanks at the end of Excavation?

I came to realize that I wanted to know those answers, too. I was no longer satisfied within the confines of a single book. So I challenged myself to construct a series - something unique and distinct. I wanted to build a landscape of three-dimensional characters and to create my own mythology of these people's lives. I didn't want to fashion a series like the hundreds out there already, where one character is constantly encountering one harrowing adventure after another, a character who never really ages, who never really grows.

While there certainly will be a central recurring character in the series, the supporting players will come and go in what I describe as a revolving set of characters around a central figure. All these characters will grow over the course of the series, balancing personal lives and professional, some succeeding, some failing. The same with the central character, a new member to Sigma Force: Commander Gray Pierce. He will struggle to find his own path to balance family, God, and country, stumbling along the way, but ultimately finding his path.

Considering the origin of the Romani people has only recently been determined by linguistics, I wager there are many secrets buried among a tribe of people who have been wandering across vast stretches of the world for so many centuries. A full descriptive history of these nomadic people has yet to be done. How many stories must be buried in the memories of those who have traveled continents and centuries? That knowledge alone is a vast treasure waiting to be tapped.

Everyone knows Thomas Jefferson as the architect of the Declaration of Independence. Volumes have been written about the man over the past two centuries, but of all the founding fathers of America, he remains to this day wrapped in mystery and contradictions. He was both politician and scientist.

For instance, it was only in 2007 that a coded letter, buried in his papers, was finally cracked and deciphered. It was sent to Jefferson in 1801 by a colleague who shared a passion for secret codes. Jefferson was fascinated to the point of fixation on Native American culture and history. At his home in Monticello, he put together a collection of tribal artifacts that was said to rival museums of the day (a collection that mysteriously disappeared after his death). Many of these Indian relics were sent to him by Lewis and Clark during their famed expedition across America. But what many don’t know is that Jefferson sent a secret message to Congress in 1803 concerning Lewis and Clark’s expedition. It revealed the true hidden purpose behind the journey across the West.

In The Devil Colony, you’ll learn that purpose—and so much more about the founding of America. And it has nothing to do with freemasons, Knights Templar, or crackpot theories. The truth is as illuminating as it is disturbing.

I'd let it go. It would just give me another reason to go shopping.

That would be true. Like any government, the Vatican does indeed maintain a sophisticated intelligence-gathering operation, even employing full-time agents. One of its most notable and heroic missions took place during the Cold War, when the Vatican attempted to smuggle priests into the Soviet Bloc to act as spies.

And even today, such clandestine operations continue. During the Iraq war, the Vatican maintained detailed intelligence of conditions on the ground - gleaned not from individual spies, but from its community of two hundred thousand Iraqi Catholics. And perhaps therein lies the Vatican's greatest strength: Between its diplomatic ambassadors, its worldwide charitable organizations, and its millions of parishioners and lay persons, the Vatican certainly maintains a sophisticated global network of eyes and ears.

I love to travel, and I've been to many of the locales depicted in this novel: from excavating the lower levels under the Coliseum of Rome to trekking through England's Lake Country atop one of those Fell Ponies. It's always a challenge to try to capture the beauty, wonder, and history of these places within the pages of a book.

I think it was how fragile those catacombs are. A cave-in back in 1961 swallowed up an entire Parisian neighborhood, killing scores of people. And even today, sections of those tunnels collapse every year, damaging parts of the city--which, of course, made the writer in me wonder: what if something MUCH worse happened?

During my research, I discovered the Mayas were the first to use the cocoa bean to make chocolate. And they also used the sap of the chicle tree to make chewing gum. Even Wrigley used this sap to make their original chewing gum in the 1890s.

It was the introduction of a tiny winged creature--half dragon, half snake--called a wisling. He appeared midway through this book, pestering the heck out of Jake, and refused to leave. He’s now a major character and plot point. That is an example of the unexpected magic found between the plotted stepping stones.

Rebecca - This is going to sound weird, but we haven’t really disagreed on much about the book. Or maybe Jim is so clever and diplomatic that I haven’t noticed, which is basically the same thing. Once we knew what story we were writing, we’ve both just worked on writing the best story we could. If it serves the story, it stays. If it doesn’t, it goes. And, so far, we’ve both pretty much agreed on what serves the story best. Check back after book 2.

Jim - I agree. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that neither of has huge egos. Rebecca gave me latitude to experiment and stray from the path, and I offered the same to her. Sometimes it works; other times not. We talk it out, lay out the pros and cons, and settle on what works best for the story or characters. My usual response when Rebecca has suggested a change in story, plot, or writing was “Cool!” Those rare moments when I scratched my head about something that Becky recommended, I usually said “Run with it and let’s see.” And 99% of the time, Becky was right in the end (darn it all!).

Rebecca - For The Blood Gospel, I got stuck less than usual, because Jim can often fix the points where I get stuck and I can fix the points where he does. It’s basically sold me on collaboration.

Jim - I agree. One of the strong points of collaboration is that there are TWO brains to solve dilemmas.

The story started because of a Cabinet of Curiosities that I began putting together from my own journeys: It holds dinosaur eggs, tyrannosaurus teeth, and many other fossils, plus pinned butterflies and other insects behind glass, and ancient artifacts and wooden totems from the four corners of the world. It awakened my own joy of the grand adventure that is life on this world. I knew I wanted to set an adventure that began with this Cabinet.

Always another book or two or three. In the spring of 2010, the second novel in my kid’s series debuts, titled Jake Ransom and the Howling Sphinx. Then, as mentioned above, the next big Sigma book comes out in the middle of summer. I also have two short stories in a pair of upcoming anthologies. Then next winter, I have another surprise in store, something I’m not at liberty to discuss yet. So there’s much more to come!

In future installments, Jake and Kady will continue to piece together clues to their parents' fate, crossing from one end of the world to another, exploring lost cultures and facing new threats from the mysterious Skull King.

I hope all three. History raises many unanswered mysteries, questions into where we came from, who we are as a people. Science offers a peek at who we will become, where mankind will move next, and the dangers inherent in that venture. I love to merge the two together in a great adventure, to take readers on a journey that’s as much inward as it is a wild and exciting thrill ride. A reviewer once wrote that I “don’t write novels, so much as build roller coasters.” I certainly hope that’s true.

While I wish I could say I took a jaunt into the prehistoric past to research this novel, I did do extensive research into Egyptian myths and legends – and uncovered stories about the mysterious disappearance of Nefertiti, a great Egyptian queen who vanished strangely out of the historical record. Historians are still arguing about what happened to her. In my new novel, I have my own opinion.

While I wish I could say I took a jaunt into the prehistoric past to research this novel, I did do extensive research into Egyptian myths and legends – and uncovered stories about the mysterious disappearance of Nefertiti, a great Egyptian queen who vanished strangely out of the historical record. Historians are still arguing about what happened to her. In my new novel, I have my own opinion.

It’s hard to explore a set of “lost ancient civilizations” without acknowledging the Greeks and Romans, so onto the page stepped Pindor, a Roman boy, and one of the main supporting characters. But you’ll also see glimpses of many other peoples, including Native Americans who ride great winged birds and even Neanderthals, who have been living in this land the longest and who hold many deep secrets.

I grew up reading Hardy Boys and Danny Dunn's scientific adventures. I loved the old serial pulp novels from the 1930s and ‘40s: Doc Savage, The Shadow. And it's what I love to write today – stories of high adventure, action, and suspense, and laced with fantastical elements.

The bones or relics of the Biblical Magi are indeed housed in a golden reliquary inside the cathedral in Cologne, Germany. It was one of those interesting tidbits that helped form this particular story. Other facts include how the Vatican has a library of bones and saints' body parts in storage at the Pope's residence, how the Vatican employs its own espionage ring, and that fora century the papacy was exiled from Rome and into France. All these tidbits and a dozen others had accumulated over the course of a decade. I didn't know how to connect them until I woke one morning with a really cool way of killing people (because that's what thriller writers do in their spare time). I woke up wondering what would happen if someone poisoned the communion wafer during a church service. After that, all the story pieces came tumbling into place, and Map of Boneswas the result.

I wanted to create a fantasy world where all manner of ancient civilizations were forced to work together to survive: Mayans, Egyptians, Vikings, Romans, etc. But where to put them? I could have transported them to an entirely new world or land, but I thought “what if groups of them were lifted from their present timeline and dragged back into the past--into the prehistoric past, where dinosaurs still roamed?” How would they survive? And that began the grand adventure as Jake Ransom and his older sister are also dropped into this savage past, to solve the mystery of their lost parents.

Rebecca - I answered this one early, didn’t I? Sorry about that. The characters had some intense experiences in the first book, especially Erin, and that leaves a mark. She realized that everything she thought she knew was incomplete—monsters existed in the world and had been leaving their mark on history for thousands of years. This shook up her intellectual worldview, and I think she’s still grappling with it. Plus, of course, the nature of her relationships with Jordan and Rhun changed a lot in the first book, and that makes all of their interactions more complex and emotionally charged.

A: Jim - Exactly. I always dislike books where characters escape great peril with barely a scratch and have no lasting effect. They get shot in the shoulder on page 4 and are perfectly fine by page 6. And it’s not just the physical aftermath, but the emotional aftermath of such trauma. That’s something we explored deeply in this second novel. Everyone was drastically changed by events in the first book, surviving a trial by fire. Now they have to put their lives back together, while facing a new and even greater threat.

Run really, really fast.

This winter, I'll be coming out with the first of a series of stand-alone novels, something independent of the Sigma series. The title of this winter's novel is Altar of Eden, and for the first time, I'll be writing with a veterinarian in the lead role, a woman who gets involved with a genetic experiment gone awry.

Rebecca - I don’t want to give too much away, but the forces unleashed at the end of INNOCENT BLOOD must be battled, and the power contained in both good and evil blood will not be easily contained.

Jim - Yes, there are some huge surprises in store both for the characters and for our readers. Some of them even shocked us. Then again, when you’re dealing with the apocalypse, no one should be safe.

I’m currently working on the third book in my middle-school series, featuring boy-explorer, Jake Ransom, and of course, the next Sigma novel, which picks up right after this novel’s shocking ending. And if that’s not enough, I’m also finishing up a brand-new secret project, the first of a trilogy. So there is much more mayhem to come!

It started with lunch. I was having a conversation with my editor at HarperCollins. She asked me a question that I heard too often while I was still a practicing veterinarian: Why haven’t you ever written about a vet, something like James Heriott’s All Creatures Great and Small? My short answer was “Because not enough people die in those Heriott novels.” Back then, I was working fourteen to sixteen hours a day as a vet, and I didn’t want to go home at night and write about one. I wanted to spin exciting stories of suspense, adventure, and exotic locales. So I told my editor at that lunch that if I were ever to tackle a veterinarian story it would still have to be a thriller. Based on that conversation, the story began to build in my head. What if a veterinarian stumbled upon an exotic animal smuggling ring…but something wasn’t quite right with the animals? From there, the story grew quickly. And yes, like in all my novels, many people do die.

I love writing Jake. He is who I was as a kid: ever curious, impatient, slightly geeky but knowing it and unable to change. But I can also understand his relationship with his older sister. Being the middle son between three brothers and three sisters, I know this relationship all too well: the arguments, the resentments, but ultimately a deep and unshakable bond of family.

I think this goes back to the debate about evolution. We don't understand it fully - and what we don't understand, we try to control. Some of the newest research suggests that human evolution is still continuing that the human species already shows marked changes at the genetic level. This is both a hopeful and vaguely frightening thought. If we are not done evolving, where might it lead? Such questions are also discussed inBlack Order- along with possible answers.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a Sigma short story, titled Kowalski’s in Love It appeared in an anthology edited by James Patterson and explained how Kowalski (who first appeared in Ice Hunt) became an adopted team member of Sigma. I found that a short story is a great vehicle for filling in “gaps” in the Sigma universe. And that’s how this story came about. In this summer’s book, The Devil Colony, the mysterious assassin Seichan arrives on Gray’s doorstep with a package of information. The Skeleton Key explains how she acquired that bit of intelligence.

I also wanted to write this story for those readers who have never read a Sigma novel. So I crafted this thriller so it could be enjoyed by anyone new to the series. Confined to one character and restricted to a self-contained adventure, I hoped this story could serve as a “sampler” for any reader interested in the series but too daunted by a full novel.

As to writing a short story versus a novel, they are definitely two different vehicles in which to tell a tale. While both vehicles need a beginning, middle, and end, a short story requires writing very tightly, sticking to one character and really getting into their head, under their skin. Seichan has always been a bit mysterious. The Skeleton Key gave me a chance to reveal more about her.

Of course! Along with Marika, they are Jake’s best friends. They are bound together by strange magnetic wristbands. So where Jake goes--his friends have no choice but to follow. But even these special companions have secrets and will grow and develop alongside our hero.

No doubt. Though maybe I'll skip the fried tarantulas. (I heard they're high in cholesterol.)

Rebecca - Because he blushes too much, which is damn funny to watch if not particularly productive, I usually wrote the first draft of those scenes. Then we talked through them, just like any other scene. He’s usually pretty nice about critiquing stuff, and he never once said what every writer dreads hearing about a sex scene: You’re doing it all wrong!

Jim - I’m blushing now. Though I have to say, there are some very sexy moments in this book.

As a veterinarian and a human being, I certainly have a strong belief that the stewardship of this world is our responsibility as a species. I think the true merit of any society can be weighed on how well it cares for the weakest among them, whether that be an animal or a human. As to the statement about the devolution of the world's seas into a primordial state of toxic slimes and jellyfish, it is a true and disturbing fact. The Los Angeles Times ran a chilling weeklong series of articles detailing and warning of the impending collapse of our seas.

Indeed. What she discovers in Paris is vital to the plot of the The Devil Colony. It will begin to expose the true identity behind the shadowy organization called The Guild. And trust me, there are some MAJOR surprises coming up in this next book.

As I mentioned above--and will be no great secret to those who finish Jake Ransom and the Howling Sphinx--we’ll be heading next to a fiery and icy archipelago of islands, where Norse mythology will come to life and more will be revealed about Jake’s parents and the shadowy monster known as the Skull King.

It’s fairly accepted that St. Thomas traveled to India, but there remains some intriguing speculation that his journeys may have taken him as far as China, maybe even Japan. In the book, I also demonstrate a strange connection between the Chinese language and its odd correlation to Biblical stories. All of this is based on real information—though I leave it to the readers to decide if such correlations are mere coincidences or in fact valid, hinting at some ancient lost knowledge of the Book of Genesis.

For the first time as an author, I got to follow the old adage: to write what you know. Of course, that applied only to the veterinary aspects of the story. For other details, I spent way too much time out in the swamps, learning such details like alligators like marshmallows, raccoons are good swimmers, and July is a very bad month to be out in the bayou. I also just listened. It’s amazing the stories and tales I heard from locals (many of them shocking and unfit for print). And of course, I ate my way through the culinary masterpiece that is New Orleans. Such is the sacrifice an author must make.

Although I’ve stepped away from the clinic I started and ran for two decades, I will never abandon the animals completely. After I shifted to full-time writing, my readers noticed that animals began to play key roles in my novels: an orphaned jaguar cub in Amazonia, an aging German Shepherd in Deep Fathom…and in Ice Hunt, both grizzly bears and a wolf hybrid named Bane are integral to the story. So there definitely is a blend of my old profession with the new one.

Jim - The seed for this series came during a trip to a museum in Los Angeles, where I found myself staring at Rembrandt’s painting of “The Raising of Lazarus.” It’s a macabre and dark imagining of this miracle of Christ, and it struck me strange how scared everyone looked in the painting. This moment started me down a road of reflection about early Catholicism, vampirism, and a story began to unfold, a story that examines the line between faith and science. I knew this could be a huge and groundbreaking new mythology, a story so epic in scope that I knew I didn’t want to tackle this alone.

Rebecca - I met Jim at the Maui Writer’s Conference just before my first novel, A Trace of Smoke, was published. He was my instructor in a thriller-writing course and we kept in touch after that. I’d just put the finishing touches on my fourth novel when he called me out of the blue about this series with vampires who live on transubstantiated blood. We spent a long time on that call talking about the world of the Sanguinists and the strigoi. We had very similar visions of that world, and could see what we each would bring to it. The writing process involves a lot of talking on Skype, rewriting, and driving each other generally crazy.

During the twelfth century, an Irish Catholic priest named Saint Malachy had a doomsday vision while on a pilgrimage to Rome. In that trance, he was given knowledge of all the popes who would come until the end of the world. This grand accounting-a cryptic description of 112 popes-was recorded and safeguarded in the Vatican archives. Over the centuries, the descriptions of each pope in that book have proved to be oddly accurate-up to and including the current head of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI. In Saint Malachy's prophecy, the current pope is listed as De Gloria Olivae, the Glory of the Olives. And the Benedictine Order, from which the pope took his name, does indeed bear the olive branch as its symbol. But most disturbing of all, Pope Benedict XVI is the 111th pope. And according to this oddly accurate prophecy, the world ends with the very next one. Could this be true? Only time will tell.

I don't think we'll ever be fully prepared for what comes next, and I don't think we can. When it comes to creativity, Nature rules. While we might anticipate a devastating flu outbreak - like the Spanish Flu in the past or the
Avian Flu today - Nature adapts, mutates, and surprises. If we try to close one door, it merely opens another. And this doesn't even take into account our own ham-fisted manipulations of Nature's worst threats: from weaponized anthrax to the laboratory recreation of the Spanish Flu virus. Are we prepared? Not even close.

I finally succumbed and accepted an invitation to go diving with sharks. Suffice it to say, I still have all my arms and legs. I've also done some traveling in Russia, including into some zones marked with radiation signs. And so far, I'm not glowing in the dark. At least not yet.

Human experimentation has often been cloaked in the "greater good," where the "ends justify the means." All nations, including the United States, have participated in human experimentation, including involuntary experimentation. Are experiments going on today with children? In some corners of the world, I don't doubt that they are. Especially with disenfranchised children - the poor, the mentally ill, the disabled. Do other nations perhaps turn a blind eye to such experiments? I don't doubt that, too, especially in today's climate where the mantra seems to be growing that the ends justify ANY means.

I wish I could say there was some mysterious connection, but it was basically Google. I researched various cults operating around Paris and stumbled upon the Order of the Solar Temple, which believes the Knights Templar are still alive and well and manipulating history. This cult’s suicidal and apocalyptic stance was perfectly suited for the story I wanted to tell.

As a veterinarian, I always love sprinkling a few unique animals into my stories. In this particular case, I feature some sturdy ponies out of England, called Fell Ponies, whose lineage goes back to before the Vikings. I also highlight a unique means of defense that protects the security of the Doomsday Vault in Norway: namely roaming bands of polar bears. This little detail, by the way, is true.

This novel required doing a bit of traveling, back to Italy again but also to the jungles of Cambodia. A large section of The Judas Strain takes place among the Angkor ruins of that country. It was an eye-opening journey into a country where landmines are still a risk to the unwary and where colonial culture and Cambodian history blend in some beautiful ways. Yet, it's also a haunted landscape, where in the recent past a quarter of the country's population was brutally slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge.

Well, with my background as a veterinarian and animal advocate, that's probably not difficult to guess. I think our own humanity can be judged by how well we care for those who depend on us.

The science in this novel addresses the next big leap in scientific research and industry. It can be summarized in one word: Nanotechnology. In a nutshell, it means manufacturing at the atomic level, at a level of one billionth of a meter. The nanotech industry is exploding. It is estimated that this year alone $70 billion worth of nanotech products will be sold in the U.S. alone: toothpaste, sunscreen, cake icing, teething rings, running socks, cosmetics, and medicines.

What’s the downside of such a growth industry? These nanoparticles can cause illness, even death. UCLA scientists have found that nano-titantium oxide (found in children’s sunscreens) can trigger damage to animals at the genetic level. Carbon nanotubes (found in thousands of everyday products) have been shown to accumulate in lungs and brains of rats. Also weird and unexpected things happen at this small level. Take aluminum foil. It’s harmless enough and convenient for wrapping up leftovers, but break it down into nanoparticles, and it becomes explosive.

It’s a new and wild frontier. There is presently no requirement for the labeling of nano-goods, no required safety studies of products containing nanoparticles. But there’s an even darker side to this industry. This technology has a history that goes back further than the twentieth century—much further. The Devil Colony explores those dark roots of this “new” science.

Ah, a peak behind the curtain. Suffice it to say that the science behind this story is not fiction, but based on current research going on in labs around the world, including British Aerospace, Argonne National Laboratories, even Boeing Labs. The investigations center on a new form of solid matter that was recently discovered - or should I say re-discovered? Further research into this subject matter also revealed an intriguing historical trail, stretching back to medieval alchemists and beyond. But to tell more would spoil the adventure!

In this book, a group of children are on the run from a menagerie of genetically enhanced beasts, but they have a companion at their side: Marta, an elderly chimpanzee who has a few secrets of her own.

The root of this book came from a recent article in Time magazine. The cover declared: 2045, the Year Man Becomes Immortal. I read that and wondered how could that be true. Could immortality be achievable in our lifetime? It sent me into a yearlong and chilling investigation into the frontiers of life extension: involving medicine, technology and genetics. The research even delved back to a frightening study done by Soviet scientists during the Cold War, who were attempting to revive the dead—a study that has ramifications still today.

After writing six Sigma novels, I was ready to tackle an independent story, one free of baggage and recurring characters. It was also a chance to return to my writing roots. My first five novels were stand-alone adventures. Each book was an attempt to capture some of the spirit of adventure found in the pulp novels that I grew up reading, paired with the wild imagination of writers such as H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, and H. Rider Haggard. My first novel (Subterranean) was compared to Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. My second (Excavation) was described as a modern update to Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines. And it’s no coincidence that Altar of Eden begins with a quotation from H.G. Wells. The quote comes from his novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, where strange experiments are performed on animals.

I love New Orleans. I’ve visited the city at least a dozen times—both before and after Katrina. I’ve toured alligator farms, traveled the bayous by airboat, walked its cemeteries by candlelight, visited plantations in the middle of July’s swelter, stolen bread from Commander’s Palace, and avoided guessing what that smell was on Bourbon Street. There is simply no other city like it in the United States. Despite the hurricane, the city abides. There remains an unmistakable vibrancy to the place, a rich blend of cultures, and a haunted quality that has been speaking to authors for ages.

Sleep? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Tell me more.

After three decades of working with dogs myself, I knew that I wanted to portray these stalwart war heroes as they really are—not just as soldiers with four legs, but as real dogs. In this book, there are scenes written from Kane’s perspective. Here, I wanted readers to experience what it’s like to be a war dog--to be in their paws--to paint an accurate portrayal on how a dog perceives the world, how he functions in combat with his unique talents and senses.

I grew up with three sisters. Kady is a combination of all three. But don’t tell them I said that, or I’m in big trouble.