For this hypothetical survival scenario, you wake up in a safe house in Bucharest with no memory of how you got there.

A news report says you're wanted for a massacre at a nightclub.

You find a burner phone with a single message that reads,

they set you up. You have one hour before Interpol locks down the borders. Find the package

in the train station locker. Do not go to the airport. Trust no one. Just then there's a knock

at the door. Do you answer the door, armed and ready, or escape immediately through another exit?

I'm going to find or make another exit, I think.

I'm going to hope that I've got a balcony or at least a window.

And if not, I'm going to have to find a way out, out through a wall, I guess, or a ceiling.

That doesn't sound good. Yeah. So you're, you're kind of, uh, you're avoiding the escalation.

Yeah. Until I know more, I'm going to trust the, uh, the one piece of information I have,

which is to trust nobody.

Fantastic. So far, you are surviving. So since you're surviving, we will also ask you questions about your new book, which I have right here, by the way. Great. Midnight Black.

Fantastic. Thanks for sending that along. Sure. So your books immerse readers in

criminal underworlds like places like Bucharest, Bulgaria, Russia. Can you tell us how much research

do you do to bring these settings to life? And what's the most surprising thing you've learned

during that process?

Well, specifically for this book, I've been to the Balkans.

I've been to the Baltic, two locations that are in the book.

But I wasn't able to go to Russia just because the security situation, if you're an American,

you go to Russia right now, they're going to snatch you up and trade you back for somebody they have in the West that they want back. And that might take

two weeks or two years, but it's not going to be a fun two weeks or two years. But fortunately for me,

...