Unknown to me at the time, this would be the start of an So one weekend in the early ’90s, I packed up my car, drove to West Virginia, and spent a Someday, I told myself, I would give it a try. I was completely enamored with anyone who could create something from nothing because I felt like it was beyond me.Įnter rock climbing. I’d read an article on climbing when I was in college and thought it looked like an incredible thing to do. While I did go for the corporate job, Iĭrove a beat-up Jeep and lived in a tiny house in a so-so Baltimore neighborhood. Most of the money I made just kind of accumulated in my checking account and I found myself increasingly drawn to the unconventional, artistic people who lived around me. It turns out that none of that really suited me. When I graduated from college in the late eighties, I had the same dream as everyone else at the time-a corporate job, a nice car, and a house with lots of square footage. I came into writing from kind of a strange angle. Who would have thought that all this esoteric knowledge would end up being so useful? Like most young boys, I was endlessly fascinated with talk of chasing criminals and, of course, pictured it in the most romantic terms possible.

One positive aspect of this lifestyle is that you can’t help but absorb an enormous amount about the FBI, CIA, Special Forces, etc. My father was an FBI agent and I was a bureau kid, which is similar to being an army brat. You tend to spend your time with other bureau kids and get transferred around a lot, though, I fared better on that front than many others. I grew up in Oregon but have lived all over-D.C., Virginia, Maryland, London,

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