I like to write about characters addressing challenges in strange and sometimes unfriendly locales, where their personal traits can be both a strength and an obstacle to achieving their goals. For that reason, my literary suspense and mystery stories are set internationally, often in places where I've traveled. My debut novel, vanished., drew on the journals, letters and photographs I made while traveling overland from Bangkok to Berlin in 1978 and 1979, particularly my journey through Afghanistan and Iran as political unrest roiled the region. The first book in The Concealing Sea mystery series, The Boy in the Suitcase, is situated on a Baltic Sea cruise. The second, to be published later in 2018, occurs in Egypt. As a former journalist and political science professor, I also have published three books of non-fiction, two in the field of presidential/legal studies, under the name Nancy Virginia Baker. I continue to travel with my partner in life, Peter. The rest of the time, we live in the arid beauty of the high desert of New Mexico. Please visit me here, on Facebook and at www.nvbaker.com