A while back, someone asked me how I choose the locations I use in my books. Those of you who have read my books know that my characters tend to travel a lot. The exception being Deadly Shore, where everyone is stuck on Cape Cod. Using that location was easy for me as I spent almost 30 years living on the Cape.

Growing up, we moved A LOT, so I have lived in many different areas of the country, both as a child and as an adult. So naturally, I’ve used some of those locations. When you are familiar with a place, it can almost become another character in the book. Many of the locations in All Lies had a personal connection for me: I lived in Fairfield, Iowa, Wahoo, Nebraska, and Brattleboro, Vermont. My wife is from East Boston and we go there a lot to visit family. As for the Wisdom Spring locations: I once spent a lonely two months living in Logan, Utah (I had moved across country after accepting an interpreting job over the phone at Utah State University that wasn’t all it was cracked up to be). My late brother and his family lived in Homer, Alaska, and I fell in love with it the moment I arrived there. There are many other places mentioned in the books that I’ve traveled to or through, such as Las Vegas and Yellowstone.

I research other locations and I use Google Earth a lot. Fordlandia, from All Lies, is an interesting one. I ran across the book Fordlandia by Greg Grandin and was immediately fascinated by the place, so I did a lot more research on it, which led to research on Brazil and a lot of “Google Earthing” of the Amazon River. That’s how it ended up in All Lies.

I have a feeling there will always be some of my own experiences from living in so many places coming through in my books, but there is a lot of research too. I find both the memories and the research equally fun. I used to say about Wahoo that the only time I said “wahoo” with feeling was when I left. I traveled through it again about ten years ago and saw it in a totally different–and more positive–light. Either way, it, and all of the other places I’ve lived, have provided fodder for my books, so I appreciate them all.