What is Tricia Fields reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Tricia Fields, author of The Territory.

Her entry begins:

In my free time I almost always read fiction, so researching for a new mystery forces me out of my rut. I’ve read some fascinating nonfiction that I wouldn’t typically pick up. A great example – I just finished an excellent book by Tom Zoellner called Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock that Shaped the World. Jon Stewart, from The Daily Show, called it “crazy fascinating,” which is actually a really accurate description of the book.

I grew up in the seventies, in the midst of the Cold War era, when we still thought there was a real chance we’d get vaporized in a nuclear holocaust before graduating high school. The potential for good and evil, all packed into a mineral found inside the earth’s crust, fascinates me. Uranium has the power to end life on earth, and can also bring heat and power to millions – but at a cost. The contradictions are captivating, and that’s what led me to feature uranium in the mystery I’m currently writing.

It was Zoellner’s book that provided me...[read on]

About The Territory, from the publisher:

At the end of State Road 170 and just past a ghost town lies Artemis, population 2,500. The townspeople had sought out this remote corner of Western Texas in hopes of living lives of solitude and independence. None of them realized that their small town would become a hot spot for Mexican drug runners, whose turf battles have turned both sides of the Rio Grande into a war zone. Still, many of the locals would rather take the law into their own hands than get help from police chief Josie Gray, even when they're up against a cartel's private army.

After arresting one of the cartel's hit men and killing another, Josie finds her life at risk for doing a job that many people would rather see her quit. And when the town's self-appointed protector of the Second Amendment is murdered and his cache of weapons disappears, it's clear that she doesn't have to pick sides in this war. She's battling them both.

Set in a desert landscape as beautiful as it is dangerous, The Territory captures the current border issues from the eyes of a tough, compelling heroine and richly evokes the American Southwest.

Visit Tricia Fields's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: The Territory.

Writers Read: Tricia Fields.

--Marshal Zeringue