Tony Petry asked Colleen Cross:

Never read any of your books but hope to very soon, was wondering where you come up with your ideas for the books, and what were some authors and books that had inspired you?

Colleen Cross My book ideas are partially inspired by my background in finance and forensic accounting. While most people aren't surprised that money is a key motivator in many crimes, they don't realize the important clues the money trail leaves behind.

Forensic accounting is akin to DNA; evidence in that is invisible to the untrained eye is very difficult to hide from an experienced fraud investigator like Kat Carter, the fraud investigator in Exit Strategy and Game Theory. Financial payoffs are a key motivator in crimes from heists to murder, and just about everything in between.

I enjoy reading crime, thrillers and mysteries, so naturally I write about those too. I'm also influenced by current events, although I tend to spin them around and ask "what if" things had turned out differently. Or- what else is there to the story that they're not telling us?

Power and corruption are important themes to me. Like it or not, everything comes down to money, too often at the expense of ordinary people like you and me. I want to tell that story.

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