Thriller author, and podcast host, Alan Petersen puts the writing adage, 'Write what you know' to good use in his Pete Maddox series.

As you'll hear, Alan was born in Costa Rica and grew up in South America. He's making the most of that experience by setting his first couple of fast-paced spy thrillers in that part of the world.

But he doesn't stop there and you'll hear us chat about the varied locations he's now introducing into his books and how he goes about researching locations he's never been to. Not to mention the CIA!

If you like your mysteries a bit more on the thriller end of the spectrum (think James Bond or Jason Bourne) then you'll love Alan's books. He's got two available now and the third one will be published very soon.

Also, if you like thrillers, check out Alan's podcast, Meet the Thriller Author. It's another great source for readers looking for new books to read and authors to follow. ;-)

You can find out more about today's guest, Alan Petersen, and all his books on his website AlanPetersen.com. You can also find him on Twitter @AlanPetersen.

Links and resources mentioned in this episode

* Click on any of the book covers to go to Alan's books on Amazon

* Alan's podcast, Meet the Thriller Author

* The CIA website

Press play (above) to listen to the show, or read the transcript below. Remember you can also subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. And listen on Stitcher.

You can also click here to watch the interview on YouTube.

Transcription of Interview with Alan Petersen

Alexandra: Hi, mystery readers. I'm Alexandra Amor, this is "It's a Mystery Podcast" and I'm here today with Alan Petersen. Hi, Alan.

Alan: Hi, Alexandra. How are you doing?

Alexandra: Very well. How are you?

Alan: Oh, I'm doing great. It's a Friday, so that's always good.

Alexandra: Yes. Yeah. Excellent. Well, let me just give our listeners a little bit of an introduction to you.

Alan Petersen writes the high-octane Pete Maddox thrillers. He lives in San Francisco, where he's working on publishing books number 3 and 4 in the series this summer, and we're recording this in June 2017. And Alan is also the host of the "Meet the Thriller Author" podcast, which we'll talk about a little bit.

And we've had some of the same guests on, I notice. Renee Paulish and John W. Mefford, to name a couple.

Alan: Oh yeah. Small world.

Alexandra: It is a small world. Yeah, exactly. Lots of mystery fans out there.

Why don't you give us a little bit of an introduction to Pete, and his world, and what he's up to.

Alan: Well, Pete Maddox is a... In the first book he's in the CIA, and he's a station chief down in Venezuela during the Hugo Chavez coup of 2002. So it's kind of based a little bit on historical, you know,