Michael P. King

Here’s another in the series of emails about the thinking behind a Travelers book. This time, Thicker Than Thieves.

Often, in a Travelers book, the Traveling Man’s wife does the key seduction, while the Traveling Man is more focused on manipulating the other pieces of the puzzle. (Like in The Blackmail Photos.) So in Thicker Than Thieves, I thought it would be fun to put him in the role of primary seducer.

To that, I wanted to add a scam we haven’t seen before in a Travelers book (always looking for something new!), which led to the idea of the Travelers robbing smugglers.

From there, one choice lead to another. The smuggled item to be stolen? Mob diamonds from India. The smugglers to steal from? Iranian Americans. And so it goes until we’re dealing with white nationalists and Middle Eastern jihadis.

It was a little more research than usual, but lots of fun to write. Getting all the pieces to fall together was a complicated challenge. I hope you enjoyed it.

If you haven’t yet read Thicker Than Thieves, you can check it out here:

https://books2read.com/u/megY8g

Happy reading!

The days are getting shorter, the leaves are falling, and we had to bring the plants in off the porch. (Yes, it’s Iowa and winter is coming. Just not for a while we hope.)

The Dark Web Scam: The Travelers Book 9 is off with the copyeditor. When a murder-for-hire scam goes wrong, the Travelers find themselves up against sex traffickers and drug dealers, with a newspaper reporter and the cops thrown into the mix for good measure. Getting even has never been easy, but does it have to be this hard?

Meanwhile, from the “you can’t make this up” file, here’s an article from the Atlantic Magazine about a woman who helped a prisoner escape from prison in a dog crate. Really. Not kidding.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/10/toby-dorrs-great-escape/615487/

Also, I was just turned on to Joseph Kanon. He writes thriller and spy novels set at the end of World War II. I’m reading his first novel, Los Alamos, which involves a murder investigation that takes place in 1945 during the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. Thus far, an excellent read.

Finally, if you’re into free eBook promos, here are two I’m participating in:  The October First-in-Series Crime Promotion and the “Fifty Free” Thrillers promotion. As usual, you get a free eBook for an email list signup. Hope you find something you like! Here’re the links:

https://books.bookfunnel.com/crimeseriespromo/c7izpftc57

https://books.bookfunnel.com/free_action_adventure_thrillers/6jrgchuv4n

That’s all for now. Happy reading!