Before I wrote Blood on the Veld, I knew that writing a thriller about wildlife trafficking would involve a considerable amount of research. What I didn't fully appreciate was how much time I'd spend figuring out how to turn that research into a story. There are facts to investigate, places to visit, people to interview, characters to develop, and plots to untangle. Then, eventually, you have to sit down and write the thing.

How a simple writing exercise led me into the disturbing world of wildlife trafficking and inspired an entirely new crime thriller series. My inspiration for Blood on the Veld came from making a list of things I hate. Not exactly romantic, I know, but it worked. At the time, I was living in a small city north of London and working as a paraplanner. My husband, Gareth, and I had moved south from Edinburgh after he decided to work for a tech start-up.

There is only so much a writer can learn about a place from photographs, maps, and hours spent online. At some point, if you want to understand how a city sounds at street level, how a hotel lobby feels late in the afternoon, or what happens when you descend a narrow staircase into a crowded basement bar, you have to go there. That was the idea behind the research trip my husband, Gareth, and I took to Japan while I was developing the second book in my wildlife crime thriller

A 2013 report by Economists at Large examined the question of how much trophy hunting really contributes to African communities. The report found that as little as 3% was shared with local communities, and this money was first placed in the hands of potentially corrupt middlemen, who may not even pass it on at all. The communities looked to photographic tourism for funding instead.

It is easy to focus conservation conversations on rangers, reserves, and animal populations. Those are the visible parts of the work. But political decisions matter just as much. Governments decide whether wildlife laws are strong or weak. Courts determine whether penalties are meaningful. Law enforcement agencies decide whether cases are investigated and prosecuted. Public officials determine whether corruption is tolerated or challenged. Without that institutional support,