Q: What is The Night Stalker about?

A: Jack Carpenter, a specialist in finding missing kids, is hired by a serial killer on death row to find his abducted grandson. The serial killer is talking to the FBI about his crimes, and has received a ransom note from the kidnapper telling him to stop, or his grandson will die.

Q: Was this story inspired by a real-life event?

A: Yes. A little boy in Florida was taken from his bedroom two years ago. The boy's grandfather was sitting on death row for murder. During the first days of the investigation, the police believed the boy's abduction was connected to his grandfather’s crimes. I thought this was a terrific premise for a thriller, and used that as my starting point.

Q: The book opens with Jack Carpenter finding a little girl who’s been abducted at an elementary school. Later in the book, Carpenter helps the police find a stolen sick baby. These scenes are filled with lots of fascinating information about how the police find stolen children. How did you learn about this?

A: I’m fortunate to know Andrew Vita, a retired law enforcement agent who works with Team Adam and finds missing kids. I have spent hundreds of hours with Andy learning what he does.

Q: What is Team Adam?

A: Team Adam is a special group of fifty-six high-level retired law enforcement agents who help the police find missing children. It’s named after Adam Walsh,
the little boy who was abducted and murdered from a mall in Hollywood, FL, and whose father is John Walsh.

Q: There is obviously an art to finding missing children that is different from other police work. Can you describe the difference?

A: When a child goes missing, the police have a complex puzzle to solve. First and foremost, they must understand why the child is missing. Is the child lost or hurt, or did the child run away? If child was abducted, was it a family abduction (parent or relative) or a non-family abduction? If the abductor was a stranger, is it a predator, a kidnapper looking for money, someone involved in human trafficking, or a serial killer? This puzzle has to be figured out quickly, because the more time that passes, the harder it becomes to find the child.

Q: In The Night Stalker, the kidnap victim is a three-year-old boy named Sampson Grimes. Sampson gives his kidnapper lots of trouble throughout the book. How did you develop this little boy’s character?

A: I’d read of a number of cases where small children turned the tables on their abductors. These children were developmentally advanced, and did things like call 911 on the abductor’s telephone, and yell for help to passing cars.

Q: During the book, Jack clashes with an FBI agent over the agent’s profile of a serial killer murdering young women in Fort Lauderdale. What inspired this?

A: In the early 1990s, a number of college students were slain in Gainesville by a serial killer who came to be known as The Gainesville Ripper. The FBI did a profile of the killer, and later named a “person of interest” -- a young man in the area who’d had brushes with the law and kept a large collection of knives. The media made this young man’s life living hell, and practically said that he did it.

Q: Did he?

A: No. The real killer was a drifter named Danny Rollings, who’d killed several people in Louisiana as well.

Q: What happened to the young man who was falsely accused?

A: My local newspaper did a piece on him a few years later. He went to college, got a degree, and is thankfully living a normal life.

Q: Midnight Rambler, your first Jack Carpenter novel, and The Night Stalker, are filled with serial killers. Is there a reason for this?

A: The books are set in Florida, where I’ve lived for the past twenty-five years. The state seems to attract, and breed, some of the very worst serial killers.

Q: Any idea why?

A: I’ve asked every law enforcement person I know that question. They seem to think it has something to do with the great weather and transient population.

Q: Jack Carpenter often misbehaves and skirts the law, yet is extremely effective at what he does. Is there a message there?

A: When Jack is searching for a missing child, he follows his conscience rather than any firm set of rules. It gets him in trouble, but it also gets the job done.

Q: Another Florida writer, Randy Wayne White, described these books as “Travis McGee meets Phillip Marlowe.” How do you feel about that?

A: I think it’s the nicest thing anyone could say about my work.