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!