It’s a global economy, now more than ever; so crime’s more global as well: International conspiracies; arms, artworks, drugs, and human traffickers; spies and terrorists—they’re all subjects for mystery and thriller novels that allow a reader to become an armchair traveler who accompanies crime fighters and soldiers of fortune on their international journeys. I went on those journeys as a reader of Agatha Christie and H. Rider Haggard’s novels years ago, but I also created a few of those adventures myself for other readers as well, starting years ago with my NYPD detectives Chen and Castilblanco.

I’ve chronicled quite a few of their cases in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco” series. Most start in New York City, but about half of them go international…or start there! The Midas Bomb, the first novel in the series, appropriately takes place in the world’s most famous city (there are international flashbacks and back stories involving Castilblanco, though), but the villains are international in origin. That’s an obvious mix to make because NYC is often called the “crossroads of the world,” a city so diverse that over 800 different languages and dialects are spoken there besides English.

Other novels in the series have an even stronger international flavor: In Angels Need Not Apply, Aristocrats and Assassins, Gaia and the Goliaths, and Defanging the Red Dragon, the city, if it’s a character, plays a minor role.

The most international of these novels, Aristocrats and Assassins, is a tale of international intrigue and terrorism that takes place completely in Europe—much of Europe is visited, in fact. It starts with Castilblanco and his wife Pam beginning a rare vacation they’ve promised themselves for a while—she’s a busy TV news reporter and he’s a cop, so their periods of free time don’t often overlap! A group of terrorists are kidnapping European aristocrats. The motive’s not clear, but Castilblanco gets involved. The action involving Chen begins in China, but the two detectives eventually come together to solve the mystery of the kidnappings.

The other “international novels” in the series take place only partially overseas. Angels Need Not Apply is about a conspiracy where a drug cartel, Muslim terrorists, and an American ultra-right militia team up to create major mayhem. Each group has a different motive to create chaos, so Chen and Castilblanco’s struggles to thwart their plans aren’t easy. A lot of Gaia and the Goliaths takes place in France. In perhaps my most prescient take on things to come, an American energy exec teams up with a Russian petrol-oligarch to try to increase the West’s dependence on fossil fuels.

Defanging the Red Dragon is a crossover novel that connects the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco” series with the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series (it’s novel #8 for the first and #6 for the second). It begins in NYC and continues to DC and London. Castilblanco is present in both the US and UK; Chen holds down the fort in the US. (Esther and her new husband Bastiann van Coevorden had earlier cameos in several “Chen and Castilblanco” novels—Esther in The Collector and Bastiann in Aristocrats and Assassins and Gaia and the Goliaths.)

Unlike what Michael Connolly did with his famous Harry Bosch, I didn’t want to restrict Chen and Castilblanco to one city and turn their cases there into mystery/thriller novels that are little more than police procedurals. There are very few Harry Bosch novels with an international flavor (most take place in LA), but policing these days often has an international flavor, if only for international terrorism. (Even my Family Affairs has this aspect.) I believe authors like Baldacci, Connolly, Child, Deaver, and other old stallions in the Big Five’s stables would appeal to more readers if they went international more often. (In Deaver’s defense, his best book, Garden of Beasts, is completely international, but it’s not in his “Lincoln Rhyme” series!) Maybe foreign readers love stories set in the US, but I bet a lot of American readers like stories with an international flavor. (I certainly do!)

I’ll admit that sometimes my novels might have too much international flavor (e.g., Muddlin’ Through and Goin’ the Extra Mile, the first and third novels in the “Mary Jo Melendez Mysteries”). Perhaps either extreme is bad? If that’s the case, the “Chen and Castilblanco” series is the Goldilocks choice for readers who want some crime stories that are an eclectic mix. (You can leave a comment to this article or use my contact page to tell me what you think of this.)

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“Detectives Chen and Castilblanco” Series. This seven-book series (eight, if you count Defanging the Red Dragon, a free PDF available on the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page at this website) takes you from Manhattan in the US to Latin America and Europe and beyond as the NYPD detectives battle the criminal elements of humanity. Chen is a Chinese American from Long Island whose beguiling Mona Lisa smile belies her cleverness and strength; Castilblanco is a sarcastic and tough Puerto Rican American from the Bronx. Both are ex-military and suffer no fools. These novels are available wherever quality ebooks are sold. There are many hours of reading entertainment waiting for all armchair detectives out there who are fans of mysteries and thrillers.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

When writing her famous mystery stories, Agatha Christie must have had to decide whether her tale takes place in England or abroad. Death on the Nile, for example, has an international setting; Towards Zero has a national one.

Perhaps my choices about settings have  been easier than Christie’s in the sense that I had more options? I could go with the US, UK, countries in continental Europe, or others…or even outer space. (Many Dr. Carlos stories are sci-fi mysteries, as is part of Survivors of the Chaos and all of A. B. Carolan’s novels.) I have variety within series as well: Some novels in the “Chen and Castilblanco” and “Esther Brookstone” series are mainly national in scope (US and UK respectively), while other novels in those series take their MCs away from their home turf to other lands. (The first three “Esther Brookstone” novels are international in scope while the remainder are local.) Only the spin-off “Inspector Steve Morgan” series is completely local with the Bristol area of England as its setting.

Settings can make or break a novel for some readers, of course. If you dislike the UK, for example, you might not appreciate the “Esther Brookstone” or “Steve Morgan” novels. But Agatha probably created Poirot (a Belgium PI) for that reason, and my Bastiann van Coevorden (a Dutch sleuth) possibly serves the same function to mitigate your distaste: These two detectives (Bastiann even looks like David Suchet, the actor who so often portrayed Poirot) give an international flavor to the tale, even though the settings where most of the action occurs are local.

Carlos Obregon creates some mystery all by himself. He’s a doctor but no Dr. Watson aiding a drugs-addicted Holmes; he’s also clearly Hispanic, a sleuth whom you might think is a first in sci-fi literature. He’s not. Many of my novels have Hispanic main characters. The Midas Bomb in the “Chen and Castilblanco” series was one of the first, and Soldiers of God even features a Hispanic priest who’s an FBI informant!

Even if they have local settings, stories can have unusual ethnic characters. (Again, this might not please the “America first” white supremacist crowd of the MAGA millions, but they can’t even read. Their fuehrer certainly doesn’t! The anti-cultural appropriation crowd might not like my fiction either. To hell with them all!)

But I digress. International settings and characters have nothing to do with politics per se. I use the storytelling devices in the best way I can to make a tale interesting and exciting. My goal is for readers to have fun with a tale, as much fun as I had while writing them. You can armchair-travel with my tales, and you can learn about different ethnic groups of our world as well. And, by doing the research necessary to make my fiction seem real no matter what the settings or characters might be, I continue learning as well.

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Comments are always welcome. (Please follow the rules listed on the “Join the Conversation” web page.)

“Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series. The first three novels in this series hop around the world a bit. The last six stay in the UK for the most part, although number six, Defanging the Red Dragon, is set half in the US and half in the UK, as a crossover novel also featuring Chen and Castilblanco. (It’s also a free PDF download like the novel Intolerance. See the list of all freebies on the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page.) In any case, that’s nine mystery/thriller novels that will provide you with many hours of reading pleasure!

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

I read most of Tom Clancy’s books until he started writing about a secret, privately financed, vigilante organization…a bit over the top for even this old thriller writer.  Up to that point and independent of his politics, I thought he could spin a good yarn backed by enough techno-babble that it all seemed real (see the Clancy quote running across the banner of this website).  In fact, I’d wager that some higher mucky-mucks in the Pentagon weren’t happy at times with his description of U.S. and Soviet military capabilities.

More importantly, Clancy covered an era from Cold War to counterterrorism.  His first two books, Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising, portrayed anti-Soviet operations featuring the U.S. Navy (the latter is an interesting Tolstoy-length account of what World War III might have been like).  The last books I read focused on terrorism (did the Japanese pilot who flew his aircraft into Congress in Debt of Honor provide ideas for the 9/11 terrorists?).  In between, he even touched on the emergence of China (The Bear and the Dragon), although he didn’t predict the kind of fascist capitalism that has taken over in that country.

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