Speaker 1: This is pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets. Welcome to
Animal Rights on pet Life Radio. That's your host, Tim Link,
and I'm so glad you're joining us today. We have
a wonderful guest and a really interesting novel to talk about.
Of course, we're talking about author Sarah Driscoll and her
latest Deadly Trade that's part of the FBI K and
I novel series, and we want to talk to her
a little bit about the book and then the ins
and outs with that out, giving it all away, and
then of course we'll not talk to Sarah also about
writing in general, because she's a master at a craft
and wears many, many hats, so we want to pick
her brain a little bit about how she does all
that wonderful stuff. So everybody, hang tight, we'll come back
right for this commercial break. You're listening to Animal Rights
on pet Life Radio.
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Animal Time pet Life Radio. Joining me
now is author Extraordinary Sarah Driscoll. Sarah, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Hi, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's great to have you here. And I was
excited when I got the book because obviously I'm I'm
familiar with the series, and then I didn't realize at
the time how many other series and things you've been
involved in. So I do want to talk about that,
but mostly I want to talk about the latest book,
which is called Deadly Trade, and it's part of the
FBI Ke nine series. So tell us a little bit
about without giving it all away, a little bit about
the book, maybe some of the characters in there, and
of course we've got a dog extraordinary in there, so
we know it's got to be a good book. The
dog's in there.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, so the FBI canine series. Deadly Trade is actually
the tenth book in the series, and the two main
protagus in the series are Meg Jennings and her search
and rescue black lab Hawk. And Meg has had a
past before as a sort of a patrol canine officer
with the Richmond Police Department, but when her dog was
shot and killed in the line of duty, she kind
of pulled back from the police department went back to
her parents' animill rescue in Virginia to kind of heal
and kind of recover from the loss of her previous partner.
And a sick little puppy gets tossed on their doorstep.
He's got parvovirus and he's on the verge of death,
and she helps nurse him back to health. And this
is Hawk, and so then she wants to stay in
law enforcement to an extent. She doesn't want to go
back to being a patrol handler, so she teaches Hawk
search and rescue skills, and so they become contracted by
the FBI and they join the Friends Like Friends, a
canine unit and the Human Scent Evidence Team to be specific.
So they are live fine scent dogs that are as
part of this team. And she's one of four dog
and handler teams. The other sort of main her main partner.
His name is Brian Foster, and he has a German
shepherd named Lacy and so, but there's two other dogs
as well. There is Rocco, who's a border Collie. There
is Theo who's a bloodhound. And so you know, sometimes
just you know, Meghan Hawker needed, Sometimes it's Megan Brian.
Sometimes it's all four dogs. The book that I'm currently writing,
which is the next one in the series, all four
dogs are on site. So these are live, fine dogs.
They're looking for the lost or the injured. They respond
to that natural disasters. The third book in the series,
Storm Arising, there's a hurricane that they respond to. There's
a building collapse in the eighth book in the series
and that and it's in Washington, d C. So again,
all four dogs are you know, sort of first on
site in this case. In Deadly Trade. Meg meets a
firefighter in the very first book, in like right at
the beginning of the story, and they've just gotten married,
you know, at the end of book nine they get married,
so that's not really a spoiler at this point. So
they go to Hawaii for their honeymoon. Hawaii, of course,
is still FBI jurisdiction, and they spend the first week
sort of taking it easy, you know, being really relaxed
after the stress of the wedding and the previous case,
which had been in Colorado, which had been very stressful.
And of course they're out doing some hiking because they
want to sort of keep their you know, their healthy
lifestyle up, because they're all sort of hard working, working people,
and of course they have Hawk with them when they
are going through a remote fern forest and they run
across a bunch of wildlife traffickers. So the last half
of their honeymoon gets turned into you know, an FBI case.
Speaker 1: Nice Well, I read through that, I thought, okay and good.
It's a great mystery. It's a great canine thing. We've
got great characters in there, we've got the dogs in there.
That's good. It's in Hawaii, probably my all time favorite place.
And then all of a sudden it just turns into
an FBI mystery. So my first inclination was like, ah,
those poor people. Then my second was, oh, I wonder
if they get to write that off as a business.
Speaker 4: Well, that is what happens, is that all of a sudden,
you know, the FBI picks up the last half of
their honeymoon stay and all the sud It did actually
kind of turn out to their advantage, although they did
not get the week off that they had planned.
Speaker 1: There you go, So the bright side of it for sure.
Now the mystery itself, you know, and what they uncover.
Are there any unique things that pop up that readers
would either say, Okay, I'm sort of familiar with this location.
Is this plausible thing? Does it seem like, you know,
why didn't I see some people that were, you know,
doing poaching and doing all these things when I was
on the island. Where there any little unique things that
popped ups, like people would say, oh yeah or oh wow,
I didn't know.
Speaker 4: Well, part of it is just the remote locations. So
when I was planning this book, I was looking for
places where some of these birds would be found and
sort of best stepping back a bit for a larger picture,
why is the extinction capital of the world. They think
that they have lost more species than sort of the
rest of the world combined. Interesting, and so there is
an I you see an red list which you can
look up any of these species that are are going extinct,
and they have maps of all of their you know,
sort of remaining locations, and so you can sort of
layer these maps on top and find areas where you
could possibly find the remaining birds. And for some of
these birds, there's like only a thousand left and they
are only you know, there's only it's only on one
of the Hawaiian islands. If you're talking about the Hawaiian crow,
there's only about one hundred and twenty to one hundred
and fifty left, and they are all in captivity. They're
trying to reintroduce them. They've tried to reintroduce them back
on the Big Island and it didn't work because the
Hawaiian hawk, who is also you know, running towards the
extinct level, was picking them off. So they're going to
try and introduce them now on Maui, which does not
have the Hawaiian hawk, so they have hopes of bringing
the species back. But so the areas where you would
find these birds are not typical areas that would be
considered touristy sort of sight seeing spots. And when I
was planning this, I picked the putumaka Ala Natural Area reserve,
and on very short notice, my husband and I decided that,
you know, I decided that we needed to go, and
of course my husband's a good sport and he came
with me and we hiked that natural Area reserve and
it is just as overgrown and you know, remote as
sort of described in the book. So I think that's
part of it is the interesting you know, the interesting
thing is is sort of where these animals, where these birds,
are the threats that exist for them now that are
mostly introduced threats because you know, things come in on
boats that were never there and none of these species
have developed protection against. That's why there's been such a
problem with seabirds being you know, sort of losing their
habitats because people are building and then they have cats
and mongooses and rats, all of which are introduced on
the Hawaiian islands that are getting into their nests and
eating their young and killing the parent birds and stuff.
And that's when we get into the conservation dogs, which
is really interesting in my mind. And because I'd been
so focused on lawn horseman canines, this wasn't a type
of working canine that I was that familiar with. But
as I got more into the you know, the information
about them. They're really amazing dogs. And where most of
the dogs are you know, law enforcement dogs are trained
to either track people or to look for explosives or drugs.
These are dogs that are trained to look for a
specific kind of bird or animal so that they can
find nests and then the people the you know, the
conservation lists can build you know, sort of structures around
the nests so that the predators can't get into them,
and it saves you know, it saves the seabird eggs
and the seabirds themselves. So they're really amazing.
Speaker 1: That's incredible. So for me, obviously, I always love this
because you know, from a novice, just a casual reader
or fan, you know, I'm not sure how much they
know about all the details. But there's a lot of
research going into this novel. You know, there's a lot
to know. And were you more in tune with you
knew some of this knowledge about the birds and some
they're going through extinction these type of things, and that
drove the storyline or was it more once you got
into the storyline. And of course she had to go
to Hawaii. That's an that was a given, but through
the research, then did you find out more about about
this situation, about the birds and extinction and the uniqueness
of it.
Speaker 4: Every book is planned differently, this particular book. It's funny
that there was a girlfriend who sent me an article
about the twenty twenty three Kilauea eruption, the volcanic eruption,
and I had just finished writing the ninth book sum
Its Edge. They'd just been married, and I was like, ooh,
volcanoes Hawaii. That's an FBI jurisdiction. So I actually, in
this case, the location came first, and then I had
to go back and figure out what the crime would be.
And the Hawaiian Islands actually are frustratingly low on federal crimes,
and it asked me a federal crime to fit into
the whole FBI jurisdiction thing. But then I kind of
got into, you know that one of the big problems
on the island is just you know, the rate of
extinction of many of the species, and trafficking is a
real problem. And I mean most people think of wildlife
trafficking as being rhinoceros horns in Africa, it can also
be lizards and hardwoods and birds and so if you know.
And for people who are into that kind of prize,
so to speak, the more rare it is, the better,
and they really don't care that they could be putting
a species at risk.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't think about that aspect of it now.
And you're right, I think the diversity of what we
call domestic animals nowadays, you know, or some of the
animals should not be domesticated at all, but it's tending
to trend in that direction, you know. Yes, you know,
we've got our dogs, we've got our cats, and if
we're on a ranch or have a farm, we have
horses these things. But a lot of the exotic animals
are real, especially for a younger group, if they can
afford it or are more in tune with that, that's
what they like. And like you said, they the rare
it is, the more people want it.
Speaker 4: Which they see it as a collector's item, but it's god,
it's a living creature.
Speaker 1: Exactly, and don't think of the long term ramifications of it. Yeah.
So I love the fact that you know, you've got
the framework of This is the tenth novel in the series,
so I know you know the characters and had the framework,
but I love the fact that you almost sort of
I on say, backed into it, but you went in
a different direction. You know, you found the research and
did the research behind it and really delve it into
that and then figured out how you were going to
maneuver it back into what we know as the you know,
the FBI CA nine series.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and why was an interesting place too, because it
wasn't just the birds, it was the volcanoes. And I
have to admit, you know, I live in the Great
Lakes Basin just outside of Toronto, so volcanoes are not
really even on our radar. And so that was the
other thing with this book was that I figured this
is going to be my one and only chance to
use that particular natural danger, which just because it just
you know, an eruption kind of starts coming in towards
the end of the book and it just ramps up
the risk to everybody involved at that moment.
Speaker 1: I love that in Hawaii is such a unique place
to begin with in so many facets, and each of
the islands are unique. So it sounds like, you know,
you've got to make the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth part
of the novel for the other Islands because you and
drag your husband along with.
Speaker 4: That's right, Yes, he's a very good sport. Actually the
eleventh the eleventh book takes place in Mammoth Cave National
Park in Kentucky, so late, you know, late summer, early fall.
He and I did some some caving trips as your
research for that, so you got to kind of get
your feet wet.
Speaker 1: Absolutely well. I know that area well, my family here
at each came from around that area. So we've been
the Mammoth Cave many, many, many times, so it's amazing.
It is an amazing place for sure. Yeah, all right,
we're gonna take a quick commercial break. We'll come back
and talk to Sarah Drischoo a little bit more about
her latest book, Deadly Trade, and we they I want
to talk to her about her writing in general, So
everybody hang tight. We'll come back right after this commercial break.
You're listening to Animal Rights on a Life Radio, Real people,
real stories.
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to and all writes on pet Life Radio
to you our conversation with author Sarah driscoll In on
her latest book, Deadly Trade and part the FBI K
nine novel series. Now, Sarah, when you put together this book,
or maybe even the series in general, is there a
goal that you have when everybody picks up a copy
of Deadly Trade and they read through it, is there
something that you're thinking, I hope they get this out
of the book, and if not, are there some surprise
sometimes you get from your fans?
Speaker 4: I mean to me, I guess the point of the
series is just I like to read books myself where
even when the rest of the world doesn't really seem
quite fair, you come out of it feeling like there's
been some emotional justice, so that you know, even when
bad stuff happens often to good people, there's hope that
you know, at least some justice will be found at
the other side of it. So that's kind of the
underlying theme that goes through all of the books.
Speaker 1: Nice and I love how when we first started talking.
You know, I talk to a lot of authors. I'm
really blessed on this and a lot of them have wonderful,
great series of books that they write. And there's two
parts that always strike me as amazing. One is how
doy in world do you keep the characters straight from
one to the other? And two, I guess we're aa
plus one. How do you make sure you don't kill
off one of the characters that people love? And you
never kill off the dogs, so I know that for sure.
And then with you when we first started talking, I
mean you rattled off in number eight we do this
and number nine we're doing that because I admittedly I
talked to some authors and they're like, uh, I hope
I got that right? Was that in number one or
was that in number three? When you know Harry bit
the dust? You know those things. So I guess the
question in general is how do you keep that sorted out?
How do you keep the characters reoccurring in fresh and
how do you know not to kill off one of
the fan favorites. You're going to get a lot of
bad social media marks on it.
Speaker 4: We'll say, yeah, well, and you're right. I mean I've
had people email me before and saying you're not going
to kill the dogs, are you? I'm like, no, no, no,
none of the four main dogs are going to die
because I wouldn't be able to live with myself if
it was that. I guess my answer to how do
I keep it all organized is, and this is sort
of like really sort of in the weeds technical stuff
is I use Scrivener when I'm writing, and so each
book I do, I grab the last book scrivener wipe
out all the pros, but it's got all of the
character descriptions for each character. I've got a running list
of what year and what time period each book is
and that kind of thing. So that kind of helps
keep me organized. Because I also have, you know, a
five book series. Well I'll be starting the sixth book
on that one, in the NYPD Negotiators, So I do
the same thing with that too, because you know, I
have a cast of characters there, and all of my
books seem to sort of take law enforcement from sort
of a side angle, Like it's not just the gumshoe
detective or that kind of thing. It's always law enforcement
that's not just sort of the mainstream so it's hostage
negotiation or it's you know, canine work. But each series
I like to write a group ensembles. So each series
has a fairly large cast of recurring characters and so
I mean that may seem kind of you know, brass
tacks kind of way to do it, but it really
make it really makes a big difference in you know,
in helping me keep things in line. And even if
it's just something as simple as what weapon logan is
using the negotiators or what search and rescue knife she
carries as her general sort of equipment, Like, it's little
details like that that are really easy to forget.
Speaker 1: So that that helps. I love that. I love that,
you know, and that's a great tool to use. I
mean when I talk to authors about this, you know,
it's a matter of you get intimate with your characters,
and you know, they become part of your life. You
know who they are and what they do. So sort
of the what I wouldn't say the basic things, but
the surface things are to me at least, are easy
to remember. But when you get down, like you said,
the specifics, like what knife was it, because I'm I'm
assuming she doesn't pull out her favorite knife and every
you know, it's not like every every time you write
a book, she's got to have this knife with her.
You know.
Speaker 4: It's yeah, it's some of her gear and you have
to assume she has it with her every time, but
she doesn't necessarily always need to use it exactly.
Speaker 1: So to reflect back into your book number three, when
the last time she used it as an example, you know,
it's you have to have these tools to be able
to do that. And I love that. How do you
do that? It's great, And like you said, it's a
challenge because I you you brought up the NYPD Negotiators series,
So now you're juggling two. You've got ten in this series,
and NYPD Negotiator Series is number.
Speaker 4: I've number number five comes out in April and number
six will be the year after.
Speaker 1: So you're juggling both of them. So then let's ask
let's go back to that. Then how do you do
that as a writer? I mean, obviously your editor saying, okay,
remember April first is the deadline. You got to get
your you got to get the last draft in. But
other than that, how do you keep one separated from
the other and end? From a writing standpoint? Are there
certain timelines like go, okay, I need to at least
spend four months with this book, or I need to
spend you know, three months starting this book.
Speaker 4: Well, the last couple of years. I've been writing three
books a year, so I only have about four months
to write each book start to finish, and that's while
i'm doing copy edits for the book before, or proof
pages for the book before that, or low lunching than
the you know, the book before that. So it's been
it's been a lot of overlap. So that's that's been
a little bit challenging. But as far as keeping keeping
them sort of separate, it was I found it hard.
I didn't just start into the Negotiator series until I
was about five books into the FBI kne Eyes, and
so for the first couple of years doing the Negotiators,
it was was kind of hard to sort of I'd
have to kind of go back and really review the
previous book or books to kind of get my head
back into that space. Now I'm lucky that I'm this
far in I can kind of just gear shift and
flip back to the other characters because they're now very
sort of rock solid in my head.
Speaker 1: Very nice. Wow wow. Now going back to writing in general, Yeah,
I read your bio and you spent thirty years as
an infectious disease researcher. Is that right? Or in the
infectious I love that. First of all, you findly, you know,
you found your passion, took that leap of faith, and
you're doing fantastic, So kudos for you on all that.
But you know you're shifting gears in my mindset when
I read through your bio, It's okay, I'm spending all
this time in infectious research, but now I want to
write you know, K nine and n FIBD cop series stuff,
you know, negotiating stuff. How do you make that switch?
How did you take that leap of faith? How did
you know that? Did you wake up one day say
I'll screw it, I'm done with this. I'm going on
to the next thing.
Speaker 4: Well, actually, I there's a series that I wrote before
those two series, which was The Abbot Lil Forensic Mysteries,
and that was kind of the gateway into the other ones.
That was more of a typical sort of shoegum detective
like that was Lee Abbott was or is a series.
Speaker 1: Is still out there, you better get it.
Speaker 4: It was a homicide detective with the Essex Police Department
in Massachusetts, but she was working with a forensic anthropologist
and that was where the science aspect came in. So
that five book series is pretty heavy on the science,
and so that was kind of my introduction into you know, publishing,
but it was also it kind of balanced my love
of science with my love of writing. And then when
that series finished, it was just I dropped the science.
It just went into straight sort of law enforcement, but
again you know, through a sort of a side corridor,
you know, so not not just straight murders and stuff.
Speaker 1: Right, And that's an amazing way to do it. You know,
It's you take what you know and write about it,
and then eventually you'll continue on with that knowledge, but
then start writing things that you are fascinated with. Because
I can tell from talking to you that you know,
you enjoyed digging into these stings. You enjoy going to
Mammoth Kak, Kentucky to investigate what that's all about. To
put that into the next book.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I mean the research is part of the
fun for me. And maybe that's what came out of
the scientific research background, is that I like to sort
of get into stuff. As I said, like for Hawaii,
I didn't know about the birds, I didn't know about
the volcanoes, but I got into it. And so you
can learn an awful lot of stuff, you know, through
the Internet and through reading, and best still is, of course,
if you can manage it, is going to the actual sites.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah, I agree with that totally because the information's
out there. You know, you can go to the library
people still do library folks, so and pick up our
copy of our books when you're there, just in case.
But yeah, or go to the bookstore. That's even better,
pick up one there. But in any case, I digress.
But yeah, getting that opportunity to go there because it'd
be so easy for me. I would think about this
to write about what I know in the places I know,
but I would as a writer, would rather go to
places and have excuses to go to Hawaii and go
to Kentucky in these things.
Speaker 4: That was one of the reasons why I wanted to
go to Hawaii is I'd been to Florida, in California
and the Bahamas, and none of those places are a
good substitute for Hawaii. It's it's a very it's a
very distinct climate, and you know, just the people there
are wonderful. I couldn't replace it by any of the
past places i'd gone, so I knew I really had
to go.
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. Well, everybody go out
and pick up a copy of the book and pick
up the whole series while you're there. The latest is
Deadly Trade by Sarah Driscoll. It's part of the FBI
kN I novel series, and go ahead and get started
with all the other series as well while you're there. Sarah,
thanks so much for coming on the show. Congratulations on
another success story. I really enjoyed it thoroughly, and now
I need to get back to Hawaii.
Speaker 4: That's it. I'm sorry if I put that bug in
your ear, but you know, thank you. It's definitely a
worthwhile trip. Thank you so much for having me. It's
been a fun conversation.
Speaker 1: Oh my pleasure, My pleasure. And we'll make sure we
get your sites post at Sarah driscoll author dot com
and all the other wonderful social media sites keep track
of what Sarah's got going on, the latest, greatest, maybe
even sneaking appearance every once in a while to meet
her in person. So thanks again Sarah for coming on
the show. Everybody pick up a copy of the book
Deadly Trade by Sarah Driscoll.
Speaker 4: Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: Well, we're coming to the end of the show today,
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