Author Archives: matthewcost

In my Clay Wolfe book, Mouse Trap, I traveled down the rabbit hole into the world of genome editing, which some consider Wonderland. On the one hand, it is a place of wildly creative science trying to banish disease and … Continue reading →

Pirate Trap arrives Wednesday. March 27th. Much like a C-section, the birth of my book has been predetermined. A year ago, it was just an idea trickling around in my being, but it is about to become a reality. A … Continue reading →

Argh, matey. Walk the plank. Dead men tell no tales. Hoist the Jolly Roger. Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest, yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum. Shiver me timbers. Crack on! The world has always had a … Continue reading →

Dixey (or Dixie) Bull is generally considered the first pirate in Maine. As these things so often go, even if he dreamed of being a pirate when he was a kid, living the life of a buccaneer of the seas … Continue reading →

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season … Continue reading →

What is Thanksgiving? The history dates to a feast shared between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag people in 1621. As history is merely an interpretation of the past, the exact dates and how it all went down are all a … Continue reading →

There are so many formats of reading in the current world. I am presently reading Robbed Blind by Gerry Boyle, listening to Win by Harlan Coben on audiobook, and watching Longmire on Netflix. Does this count as reading three books … Continue reading →

It is vitally important to flesh out the characters in a novel. They must leap from the pages vivaciously like real living beings. And nobody is more important than that of the protagonist of the story. Nothing will kill a … Continue reading →

I just got back from an adventure in the UK, my second this year, all in aid of narrative accuracy. For the past year or so, I’ve been writing the third installment in the Aventurine Morrow series, Aventurine on the … Continue reading →

In 1982 seven people died in the greater Chicago area after cyanide was substituted in acetaminophen capsules sold in stores. Once the association was made between the product (Extra Strength Tylenol) and random deaths by potassium cyanide, panic ensued. Over … Continue reading →