In 2018 I had the chance to take a class called “Unputdownable” with the very talented author of Child Zero, Chris Holm, about making your writing gripping and suspenseful. He shared an anecdote that day that I have shared with many others including in classes I have taught.
He said that he’d find himself researching some dark, dangerous technique or technology and realize that his search history could brand him as an extraordinarily dangerous person who was interested in terror, murder, and general mayhem. He said that he’d type into his browser something like “Dear NSA. I do all this for research. I write novels,” just in case they were listening.
It was funny/not funny, nodding to the very real violence we explore in the crime genre encompassing real threats in the world. But it also raises the fact for me that the research I do for my current series often goes to some very, very dark places.
I had a great time exploring the world of 1990 for my debut Raven: technologies that were nascent now ubiquitous, fears of the Cold War now gone but replaced by newer threats. My upcoming series however is set in contemporary America, following technology journalist Olivia Wright as she explores unregulated technologies, political manipulation, and all the ways technology can be turned against its users.
As part of those stories, I’ve investigated the intentional misuse of social media to unduly influence people, the damage unregulated AI can do, and the corporate, political, and societal actors who benefit from those abuses. I also have had the chance to explore those working against these activities, both in public and in secret.
My editor for the first Olivia Wright book, Critical State (Fall 2027), asked me about a scene in which a whistleblower feels he must flee from the authorities who are intent imprison him for what he has revealed. He said it felt like it was real. It was as real as I could make it, researching how to disappear. It’s become much, much harder than it was even twenty years ago, but there are steps you can take, including having fake IDs made.
Now, if my character were in the CIA, there’d be a whole team who would help him create his false “legend,” complete with identification, disguises, even pocket litter consistent with the character he would play.
But if you are a private citizen in 2026 with access to Bitcoin, you can buy one online. The location for the marketplace (that is exactly like every e-commerce site you’ve ever been on) is on what is known as the “dark web.” It is inaccessible via a normal browser, but available via the secure Tor browser, which encrypts all traffic and masks your location. It’s considered mostly secure (though there are rumors the NSA has indeed penetrated it). The address of a very 1990’s style index of available interesting sites, known as the “Hidden Wiki,” gives you addresses of these sites. Once there, with enough Bitcoin, you can purchase fake drivers licenses complete with magnetic strip, holograms, and other embedded security features.
To be clear, I did not buy one. But did I load up a cart with them to learn how it works? Yes, I did.
For my next book in the Olivia Wright series (Fall 2028), I’m still researching and drafting. This book features a plot line with an Anti-AI activist/terrorist. The title of this post plays on one of the sites that has been extremely informative, CrimethInc, a repository of books and research on resistance movement ideas, history, and activities. That research has been even more interesting, both for me, and for whoever might be watching my browser history.
Wrapping up Emily St. John Mandel’s Exit Party, 2026.
Next in my TBR is Granite Harbor by Peter Nichols, 2024.
Vaughn Hardacker here. Several weeks ago, I received an email from ade@speedymetric.com, the CEO of speedymetric.com, asking if I would consider interviewing for a blog on the third novel in my Michael Houston & Anne Bouchard series: How Character Background Shapes Pressure in Quid Pro Quo: Vaughn C. Hardacker on Writing Tension.
Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Dick Cass (Monday), Vaughn Hardacker (Tuesday), Rob Kelley (Thursday), and Matt Cost (Friday), with an interview with special guest Henry Wise on Wednesday.
If you’ve ever been to Augusta, you may have seen the huge cemetery at the top of the hill near the airport. It’s actually several cemeteries, at least four or five I think, with some mini-cemeteries thrown in. We grew up down the hill and it was part of our childhood playground. Graves date back a couple of centuries, and there are even a few plots of soldiers who died at the Civil War hospital that was where the airport is now. This photo is from the Forest Grove Cemetery, in between Winthrop Street and Green Street.
I go up to the cemeteries a couple of times a week now, even though I live in an adjacent town, because it’s a good place to walk the dog on the way to the grocery store. Dogs are allowed, and there are even a couple of waste baskets in what’s officially the Mount Hope Cemetery, north of Winthrop Street.
This relatively unexciting photo is the grave of James G. Blaine, who represented Maine in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he was speaker of the house for six years before serving a term as a U.S. senator. The governor’s mansion next to the State House is his former home. The annoying thing about this photo is that one reason he’s planted here at the top of the hill (along with his wife, Harriet Stanwood Blaine) is that it’s supposed to have a view of the State House dome, but it only does in the winter now because of all the trees. Yeah, I guess the trees are nice, too. Little known fact: The three-acre Blaine Memorial, right above Forest Grove Cemetery, was designed by Carl Rust Parker, a landscape architect from the Frederick Law Olmstead firm, and the same guy who tried to design Capitol Park, 
I’ve driven by the Ezra Smith Wildlife Conservation Area in Mount Vernon many times, so one day recently decided to get out and check it out and give Willow some exercise. Ezra was the father of someone that some of you may have known — George Smith, who was head of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine for many years and a newspaper columnist who wrote about the outdoors as well as travel for many more years. The 163-acre conservation area hasn’t been around that long. Most of it was donated to the Kennebec Land Trust by George and his wife, Linda, eight years ago, a little while before George, who had ALS, died. Since it’s small, with just two loop trails, I thought it’d be a nice quick walk for Willow. It actually was kind of a scary one, with very thick woods at some points. A couple of times, she stopped and stared intently into the woods and wouldn’t go fowward without extreme urging from me, which is highly unusual behavior. Still, we came out all right. But there’s definitely something in those woods.
in Bath. Usually I bring the standards: first Burgess, first Thea, most recent books including my three thrillers and the romantic suspense. This time, as I was choosing what to bring along—always a challenge for someone who has published 28 books—I thought it would be fun to bring some different ones. Sorting through the boxes in my garage, I was reminded of some of the diversions I’ve taken along the way.
Next up was another collection of crime stories. One of the requirements for being a LBB editor was that each of us had to write a story approved by the other editors to be included in the collection. I gathered up those stories, plus stories I’d published in other collections, and created my own collection, Careful What You Wish For: Stories of Revenge, Retribution, and the World Made Right. Working with LBB taught me a lot about the choices that go into assembling a collection—long, short, dark, light, and what’s a stunning story to go first and a powerful one to finish. I also had a great time designing the cover. I found a photo that worked with the stories and my wonderful cover designer, Dave Fymbo, tweaked it for the cover.
shopping. It’s A Sampling of Sleuths, which is a compilation of ten stories featuring their series characters by “proven mystery authors each one with strong backlists.” Designed as a great way to introduce new writers to mystery lovers, it’s the perfect gift for a mystery lover if you don’t know what they’ve read or what they like. It was fun to write a short story with Burgess, and I got to make Fideau the “crime scene dog” he adopted a few books ago as the real hero of the piece.
like stories that are a bit different.
Or you can buy twenty-plus-year-old mint, autographed first editions directly from the author.
