Leave No Trace
Cold Burn
Book 1 and Book 2 Michael Walker National Park Thriller
A. J. Landau
Minotaur Books
Leave No Trace and Cold Burn by A. J. Landau had the US National Parks as a main character. A.J. Landau is a pseudonym for veteran authors Jon Land and Jeff Ayers.
Leave No Trace literally starts out with a bang and does not let up from the first page. The Statute of Liberty is blown up by calculating terrorists who have their own deadly agenda driven by vengeance. They vow to cause as much destruction and devastation as possible. To stop them, Special Agent Michael Walker of the National Park Service is sent by his boss to New York as the agent-in-charge. He immediately is told that FBI Agent Gina Delgado is heading up the Joint Terrorism Task Force and is in charge. Though their initial interactions are a bit icy, the two eventually team up realizing that this terrorist attack is the first of many. They must navigate to try to find out who is behind the terrorist attacks and why.
Cold Burn combines Native American culture with climate science. Agents Michael Walker and Gina Delgado return to find out why there are multiple deaths that do not seem to add up. At first it appears that there is no relation to several cases. A U.S. Geological Survey team has gone missing in a cave after an avalanche, the entire crew of a submarine perishes on a training mission off Alaska’s Icy Strait, smugglers stealing Tlingit Indian artifacts in Alaska, and in Florida’s Everglades National Park the murder of an environmental science intern who was part of U.S. Geological Survey team. The two Agents begin their investigations separately but join forces after realizing there is a connection that lies in a deadly prehistoric organism. A rogue billionaire, Axel Cole, sees this organism as the ultimate fuel source and a Russian strongman views it as the ultimate weapon that can shift the global balance of power forever. Walker and Delgado realize they must get to the bottom of what is happening and who is behind it before all those on Earth are affected.
Both these books involve bad guys who are part of the deep state of the US government along with other evil doers. These plots intertwine terrorism, politics, military operations, and corruption. A bonus is the information about various national parks and historical locations inside the United States that is not overdone and does not slow the story down.
Elise Cooper: How did you get the idea for Leave No Trace?
Jeff Ayers: There is the old Groucho quote, “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. I am a huge National Parks person as you can see by the hat and shirt I am wearing. Other books were always about one park, one murder. I decided to write a story with multiple parks. I asked Jon for advice, and he told me I must blow up the Statute of Liberty on page one.
Jon Land: We write to make sure the characters get the motivation needed. For me, the key to writing is, as the author, to surprise myself.
EC: How did you get the idea for Cold Burn, the second in the series?
JA: We wanted to have as the setting national parks in a hot place, the Everglades, and then in a cold place, Alaska. After I went to Alaska to learn about Glacier Bay National Park, I learned there were thefts of native artifacts. I knew this is what we will be writing about. I wanted to write in the style of Michael Crichton.
JL: The criminals of the thefts originally had nothing more to do with the plot after they were caught. I thought about it and told Jeff nothing was connected, and we need cause/effect. I asked what if they were not smuggling the artifacts but smuggling something hidden inside them. This became our first major plot twist.
EC: Do you agree that the first book, Leave No Trace, was a different kind of genre than the second book, Cold Burn?
JL: Yes. Cold Burn is a classically structured thriller with multiple viewpoints where the readers are left to assemble a puzzle. Readers have as much information as the hero. In Leave No Trace the reader knows what is going on with domestic terrorists targeting national parks and memorials. It was a race for the heroes to run from place to place to stop destruction. The heroes are trying to figure out the same puzzle as the reader.
EC: How has the hero, National Park Service ISB special agent Michael Walker changed in the books?
JA: He is analytical, determined, and must overcome his prosthetic foot. I wrote him with the prosthetic leg to remind him that he must wear his grief every single day. In Cold Burn he sees the hostility with the Park Service and the Native American tribe but does the right thing anyway.
JL: I think in the second book he is a little more jaded. He enjoys being more of a special investigator. In the first book, he uncovered how dirty government officials are. His faith in humanity becomes restored in Cold Burn by his exposure to the Native American tribe, Tlingit. He sees in them how they overcame the hardships handed to them by the US government and the Russians.
EC: How would you describe FBI Roving Special Agent Gina Delgado?
JL: She is not a trusting person and is brave. She likes to find patterns and has been in the army. She is an idealist at heart, but works outside of the system, bypassing the red tape. Gina realizes power corrupts and that she and Michael must defend the country from the enemy within, who are not after world domination but are greedy and want to make money.
EC: What was the role of Alex Cole, the billionaire who wants to travel to Mars?
JL: He represents the billionaire who does not care about anyone else except himself and his own profits. He wants to be the most powerful man in the world. He wants to dominate and bully the world. Cole does not care about people but is consumed by his own wealth. I hope readers feel for Axel Cole what I feel, an irrepressible human being, a true villain. He cannot be reasoned with.
EC: What was the role of the US President Jillian Cantwell?
JL: She was a character in the storyline. In the first book she became a victim in the story protected by FBI Agent Gina who was rescuing the President. In the second book the President is not as prevalent. Her involvement in Cold Burn is to give Gina her assignments.
EC: What about the national parks?
JA: The goal is to have those who are not familiar with national parks to become intrigued and to hopefully visit these places. We tried to make it as accurate as possible by speaking with the rangers. I wanted readers to learn something about them, so I put a little fact about where that chapter was set in the beginning of each chapter.
EC: Next book?
JA: There will be more books in the series, but I will be writing them with someone else, Jon Lindstrom. The next book we will write in the style of Clive Cussler. In the first two books of the series and going forward the national parks will be characters. The plot has Michael Walker’s life erupting. The working title is Blast Radius, published in 2026.
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