Balance of Evil follows a retired mining executive who happens upon a titanium USB on a Cabo beach and finds himself involved in a conspiracy involving a secret Cold War pact. Where did the idea for this novel come from?

I’m a walker. On vacation, I walk every day, preferably on a beach. Years ago, on one of those walks, I started asking myself, What if? What would it take to upend an ordinary man’s life with a single object in the sand? That question kept building, walk after walk, until I had a book.

Scott Barton is not a typical action hero; he’s older, reflective, and recovering from a major health scare. Why did you choose to center the story on a protagonist at this stage of life?

Thrillers usually hand the world to people in their thirties, but I wanted someone with more depth, confidence, and means, which meant someone older. Scott is close to my age, so I knew the ins and outs of his head. I wanted a person with a history, a heart that had betrayed him, and enough energy and wit to fight back.

The novel moves across multiple countries and political landscapes. How did you research and construct such a global setting while keeping the narrative cohesive?

I’m a lifelong traveler. At eighteen, I spent a year crossing Europe and reached as far as Turkey, and I’ve been traveling ever since. I’ve stood in most of the places in this book. The rest I researched the way I travel: through blogs, local writers, food, and history. Skip the guidebooks. They never tell you what a city actually feels like at three in the afternoon.

What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?

I just finished my third nonfiction book on branding, and I’m well into the sequel to Balance of Evil, called LIES. The first book ended with the conspiracy only half-uncovered and several characters still unaccounted for. LIES picks up there. The pact didn’t end at Camp David in 1959—and it isn’t ending now, either.

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