Altar of Eden

It started with lunch. I was having a conversation with my editor at HarperCollins. She asked me a question that I heard too often while I was still a practicing veterinarian: Why haven’t you ever written about a vet, something like James Heriott’s All Creatures Great and Small? My short answer was “Because not enough people die in those Heriott novels.” Back then, I was working fourteen to sixteen hours a day as a vet, and I didn’t want to go home at night and write about one. I wanted to spin exciting stories of suspense, adventure, and exotic locales. So I told my editor at that lunch that if I were ever to tackle a veterinarian story it would still have to be a thriller. Based on that conversation, the story began to build in my head. What if a veterinarian stumbled upon an exotic animal smuggling ring…but something wasn’t quite right with the animals? From there, the story grew quickly. And yes, like in all my novels, many people do die.

Because I still love the profession.  I always wanted to be a veterinarian.  I remember in third grade getting that assignment all teachers eventually inflict upon their students:  to answer what do you want to be when you grow up?  I sat at my desk as a third grader, scratching my head.  I knew I wanted to be a veterinarian, but I had a big problem.  I didn’t know how to spell it.  So I did the one thing all third graders are loath to do.  I looked it up in the dictionary.  I was that determined to be a veterinarian.  And though I’ve stopped practicing full time, that passion still creeps into my writing.  My characters often have animal sidekicks:  an old German shepherd, an orphaned jaguar cub, a wolf-hybrid rescue dog.  So I thought it was high time to bring a veterinarian onto the main stage.

When I was in veterinary school, half of the class was composed of women. Since then, that percentage has continued to grow. So I thought it would be appropriate to tell the story from such a fresh perspective. I also grew up with three brothers…and more importantly, three sisters. When it comes to getting inside the mind of a woman, they keep me honest. They’re still my best first readers. And since I was breaking ground writing a new subgenre anyway—the first veterinary thriller—I thought I’d have a woman take the reins in what is normally a male-dominated genre. But I didn’t want to write a female Rambo. I wanted to flesh out a real woman with a rich history, one tied to New Orleans where the story takes place. So Lorna Polk came into being.

She does. Jack Menard is an elite member of the Border Patrol. And like Lorna’s family, he has roots in the New Orleans area. But unlike Lorna’s history of plantations and Garden District mansions, his family is Cajun and have their roots buried deep in the bayous and swamps of that region. And though the characters come from two different worlds, they also share a dark history from their youth, one they sought to keep secret. But some secrets refuse to stay buried.

ACRES is a real facility associated with the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans. The research building is located within a secluded thousand acres alongside the Mississippi River. The main goal of ACRES is to use cutting-edge science to preserve endangered species and hopefully pull them from the brink of extinction. To this end, they employ techniques such as artificial insemination, embryo transfer, even cloning. Back in 2003, they were the first to successfully clone a wild African cat. They named the kitten Ditteaux (pronounced Ditto). I love their sense of humor and knew Lorna would have to work at that facility.

The scientific term for “genetic throwback” is atavism. It’s a real phenomenon where a genetic trait, lost for generations, returns in an individual. In this novel, one of the many creatures featured is a python born with reptilian limbs, a throwback to a time before the snake’s ancestor lost its legs. I thought I was making this creature up, but a couple of months ago, I stumbled upon a scientific article about a Chinese snake born with a fully functional reptilian limb poking out of its flank. For the curious, a quick Google search will bring up a picture of this snake. It just goes to show that nature is full of surprises.

Something is definitely going on, something beyond our current understanding. One of the scientific phenomena explored in this novel is the human-animal bond—the strange and deep affinity humans have for animals, an affinity that goes beyond mere affection or need for companionship. The presence of animals has a profound effect on people: petting a cat triggers an immediate drop in blood pressure, animals brought into hospital wards boost immune responses in patients and accelerate healing times. Yet, it remains a mystery why we have this bodily reaction. Current research is exploring for the roots of this strange bond. In this novel, I offer my own theory. But to tell you more would ruin the story.

As with the case at ACRES, innovative research into genetics can be of great benefit, holding the potential to save hundreds of species from extinction. But with all such technologies there are risks of abuse. It’s one of the themes I love to explore in fiction, to look beyond the cogs and wheels of new technologies and explore the moral implications of abusing that technology. And such a challenge is not unique to this century. I open this novel with a very telling quote from H.G. Wells: The study of Nature makes a man at last as remorseless as Nature. It’s a question faced with any scientific inquiry: where to draw the lines. In my novels, I love to to step over those lines and explore the strange and dangerous territory on the far side.

While there might be some regulation for labs within the United States, once you cross the borders it becomes a scientific free-for-all out there. With so much government money currently being poured into private military contracts—both to defense contractors and to the broader scientific community—competition has grown fierce and with it come abuses: including corporate espionage, vandalism, outsourcing to third-world countries to avoid regulations and safety standards, and unfortunately even darker crimes. While Ironcreek Industries was invented for this novel, its abuses are far from fictional.

I love New Orleans. I’ve visited the city at least a dozen times—both before and after Katrina. I’ve toured alligator farms, traveled the bayous by airboat, walked its cemeteries by candlelight, visited plantations in the middle of July’s swelter, stolen bread from Commander’s Palace, and avoided guessing what that smell was on Bourbon Street. There is simply no other city like it in the United States. Despite the hurricane, the city abides. There remains an unmistakable vibrancy to the place, a rich blend of cultures, and a haunted quality that has been speaking to authors for ages.

For the first time as an author, I got to follow the old adage: to write what you know. Of course, that applied only to the veterinary aspects of the story. For other details, I spent way too much time out in the swamps, learning such details like alligators like marshmallows, raccoons are good swimmers, and July is a very bad month to be out in the bayou. I also just listened. It’s amazing the stories and tales I heard from locals (many of them shocking and unfit for print). And of course, I ate my way through the culinary masterpiece that is New Orleans. Such is the sacrifice an author must make.

It comes out next summer (July 2010). In that book, a major storyline that has been building over the course of the series comes to a head, and all Hell breaks loose…in this case, literally. It’s titled The Devil Colony and it’s a huge story.

Always another book or two or three. In the spring of 2010, the second novel in my kid’s series debuts, titled Jake Ransom and the Howling Sphinx. Then, as mentioned above, the next big Sigma book comes out in the middle of summer. I also have two short stories in a pair of upcoming anthologies. Then next winter, I have another surprise in store, something I’m not at liberty to discuss yet. So there’s much more to come!

Sleep? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Tell me more.