Behind the Scenes of “Hunted” Locations – Big Schloss

Readers of “Hunted” have provided tons of feedback and asked me many questions.  It has been great to interact like that and feel free to keep it going!  Among the most common questions have been:

How did I come up with the idea for the story?  How much research did I do on the locations?  How long did it take to write?   Who read it first?    Do you know karate?  Did you research guns?

Big Schloss from the Valley Floor

So many of the ideas or details for the book came from my own personal experiences and observations.  The book took about sixteen months to write from start to finish and nobody read it until it was published.  Except my editor who did an awesome job.  Guns?  I have been around guns most of my life.  I have also done some Karate training.  A bit of training, but still working on my Uechi Rye even now! In terms of locations, most of the key events occurred in places I know!  I had been there before and did not need to really add a lot of research.

Napa?  Been there.  Northern Virginia?   I grew up there and still travel through the area regularly.  The little town of Wardensville, W. Va?  It seems like half my childhood and even now I am there a lot.  La Jolla to watch the sea lions?  Something I have done numerous times.  I had no problem developing that La Jolla memory of Tony’s being there with his family and even including the smell of the sea lions!                                        

Big Schloss is another location that is real place and the setting for a significant event in “Hunted.”  I know it personally and felt it was a perfect fit for a scene in the book!  This large rock outcropping is a well-known peak and hiking destination.  Although there are all sorts of cliffs and rock-strewn mountain ridges in the rugged terrain of the area, the fact it is on top of a ridge at about 3,000 feet and so visible sets it apart.  I have hiked up to it from Wolf Gap Recreation area a few times, just as Tony did in the book.   It is a great hike with great views, and I highly recommend it.  It is a popular hike so there is plenty of information available online about it. 

You can even see the footbridge

The photos in this post are all actual personal photos I have taken.  In the book, Tony hikes to the peak and meets up with one of his adversaries.  If you read Hunted and remember, he is alert for snakes on his hike and his adversary mentions snakes as well.  On my first hike to the peak with my wife and two kids, we came across a timber rattler crossing the trail.  Real life meets fiction! 

So, was there research required for me to write Hunted?  Only a little.  Most of the book elements and scenes were drawn from my own personal experiences and just weaved into the plot.   

You can see for several miles from atop Big Schloss