Unbridled Eye follows a U.S. Marshal with remote viewing abilities who investigates barn fires threatening pregnant racehorses and uncovers cartel corruption in the racing world, while learning she doesn’t have to carry everything alone. What inspired the setup of your story?

Having previously lived in El Paso, Texas for almost 20 years, I was on the frontlines of the battles drug cartels continue to wage for pathways into the U.S. for smuggling drugs, guns, and humans. I began writing my first thriller, The Middle Eye in 2011, when working at The University of Texas, El Paso, which is right on the U.S.-Mexico border. After losing some students from Ciudad Juarez to violence, and then a bullet hitting the UTEP campus, I began writing for therapy and for finding a way forward through the inconceivable pain that residents of both cities were experiencing. I utilized controlled remote viewing as a skill set for my protagonist, Penny Larkin, because I knew it was unlikely she could go into Mexico to hunt down suspects. Also, I have this skill myself, and it seemed like a good method for finding lost people or solving crimes as it is already employed in the USA.

Penny begins the story convinced that she has lost her ability to fire a weapon again. Why was that an important place to begin her journey, and what interested you about exploring the emotional consequences of taking lives in self-defense?

In my second novel, Devil Eye, I confront the staggering issue of gun trafficking across our southern border. In all my books, I have two kinds of antagonists, one who is very evil and the other who falls into crime along the border believing this is the only way out of an impossible circumstance. The border has been particularly harmful to young, uneducated men, who fall into the easy money of drugs and guns, and can’t find their way out. In Unbridled Eye Penny Larkin is experiencing an unexpected flash point. Penny’s emotional impasse with firing a gun comes after she has had to kill two criminals, one in The Middle Eye, and one in Devil Eye.  I believe we see many books or television dramas where the male wrestles with killing another person, but few mediums exploring how the female handles the taking of a life. This is also in juxtaposition to how individuals in Mexico view and value a human life and how those of us in the United States do. It’s completely different, and it complicates things for Penny, who must deal with the cavalier attitudes of the drug cartels. Can she holster her weapon again?

How does Penny’s complicated history with Leo affect the way she approaches love and trust?

In Devil Eye, Leo Tellez does the unthinkable and while lying wounded in the hospital trying to come to Penny’s defense, falls for the charms of his dead wife’s twin sister. Even though Leo loves Penny, he longs to recreate his relationship with his wife, having spent considerable time at her tombstone, along with that of his infant daughter, Marta. For Penny, this is unforgivable. And this is where the story picks up at the beginning of Unbridled Eye. I found to my surprise, readers are very invested in who Penny chooses for a love interest. Readers became quite angry with Leo Tellez, and thus I carried this distrust into Unbridled Eye.

Can you tell us more about what’s in store for Penny Larkin and the direction of the next book?

In Penny’s new role as a U.S. Marshal, tracking down missing suspects with federal warrants, she is made aware of the inequality in how Mexican women who are arrested at the U.S.-Mexico border are treated compared to men. Most women incarcerated in the El Paso County jail are there for non-violent crimes of drug concealment while crossing the border into the U.S. No one comes to bail these women out. No one visits them. They remain up to one year in jail awaiting trial. On average 10 women a day are killed in Mexico. There is little respect for females there, and few are given the chance to go even to elementary school.  The Mule’s Eye, (working title) explores the ever-growing hazard of Mexican women smuggling drugs and other contraband across the border, using more and more precarious means, which threaten their very lives. This time, Penny Larkin teams up with Leo Tellez — but only as professional colleagues– to try and stem the tide of Mexican women risking their lives as drug mules.