Robert McCaw grew up in a military family traveling the world. After graduating from Georgetown University, he served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army before earning his law degree from the University of Virginia. After law school he spent a year as a judicial clerk for Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black. Thereafter, he was a partner in a major international law firm with offices in Washington, D.C. and New York City, representing clients in complex civil and criminal cases. For a number of years, McCaw maintained a home on the Big Island of Hawai'i, studying its history, culture, and people, which was the inspiration for his crime fiction series featuring Chief Detective Koa Kāne. Putting himself in the shoes of Kāne, he has walked the streets, courthouse corridors, and parks of Hawai'i’s Big Island. (You an read more about another title in the series we featured here.)
Having killed his father's nemesis and gotten away with it, Hilo, Hawai'i Chief Detective Koa Kāne is not your ordinary cop. Estranged from his younger brother, who has been convicted of multiple crimes, he is not from a typical law enforcement family. Yet, Koa's secret demons fuel his unwavering drive to pursue justice. In Fire and Vengeance, never has Koa's motivation been greater than when he learns that an elementary school was placed atop a volcanic vent, which has now exploded.
The subsequent murders of the school's contractor and architect only add urgency to his search for the truth. As Koa's investigation heats up, his brother collapses in jail from a previously undiagnosed brain tumor. Using his connections, Koa devises a risky plan to win his brother's freedom. As Koa gradually unravels the obscure connections between multiple suspects, he uncovers a forty-year-old conspiracy. When he is about to apprehend the perpetrators, his investigation suddenly becomes entwined with his brother's future, forcing Koa to choose between justice for the victims and his brother's freedom.
Robert McCaw stops by In Reference to Murder to talk about researching and writing Fire and Vengeance:
One need not look further than the current coronavirus pandemic to know that health issues often play a dramatic role in life. Yet, for those of us not trained as physicians, making sense of medical research is challenging. In Fire and Vengeance, the latest story in the Koa Kāne Hawaiian mystery series, medical issues play a critical role in one of the book’s pivotal threads. Koa’s incarcerated brother Ikaika blacks out and collapses in jail. Doctors diagnose him with a slowly growing, frontal lobe brain tumor he’s almost certainly had since childhood and recommend immediate surgery. Koa learns that frontal lobe brain injuries frequently affect behavior, making those affected more impulsive and less able to control themselves. He then embarks on a seemingly quixotic effort to win parole for Ikaika by establishing that his brother’s pre-surgery medical condition contributed to his criminal behavior.
After outlining this part of the plot, I had many questions. Was the scenario I envisioned credible? How should I describe the tumors? How would doctors establish that the tumors had been present since childhood? How often do such tumors occur? Exactly how do they affect behavior? How could the connection to behavior be proved? Where might one find knowledgeable doctors? What diagnostic tools would they use? How should I describe corrective surgery? What is the recovery time?
As a layperson, I could have spent months overwhelmed by the medical literature attempting to ferret out answers through a maze of unfamiliar medical terminology. I was willing to make the effort, but only if the plot was credible. So, I turned to my own physician, who had read the first books in the series, and he put me in touch with a specialist who validated the concept and pointed me in the right direction. I later had dinner with a psychiatrist friend who encouraged me to pursue the plot idea and offered suggestions.
Then began a journey of discovery. Through medical journals, I learned that such tumors are rare—about one in 4 million people—and picked up some useful medical jargon. More importantly, I discovered a growing body of literature discussing the behavioral problems of soldiers returning from the Afghan and Iraq wars with brain injuries. Many of these patients suffer from impulsive behavior like that behind Ikaika’s criminal acts. Those sources also led me to research the miraculous developments in real-time brain imaging, allowing physicians to “see” the actual electrochemical workings of the brain under various stimulations. This research offered the possibility of proof that Ikaika’s thinking processes post-surgery would differ from his previous inability to control his actions.
My review of case studies in medical journals and on the Internet suggested that children suffering from the early stages of such tumors might have absence seizures where they stare off into space and drop things. During the relevant period, doctors often prescribed the drug Depakote for such conditions. Based on this research, I imbued Ikaika with those childhood symptoms, had him treated with Depakote, and thus found a plausible way to tie his tumors back to his childhood.
My need to describe the surgery itself took my research into the world of robotic and image-assisted brain surgery, where I developed some understanding of the processes and timetables. Most relevant to the plot, these sources outlined the most likely outcomes and prospective recovery times for this type of medical procedure. I drew on this background in creating the dialog between the doctor and Koa, and subsequently between Koa and Ikaika.
My story needed a world-class neurosurgeon to consult with Koa about the medical issues, so I researched the country’s leading brain clinics, ultimately creating Dr. Kepler, a fictional specialist at the Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. Brain Tumor Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. To add context to a meeting between Koa and Dr. Kepler at the Cochran Center, I make a virtual visit to the facility using Internet images and Google street view.
Perhaps as much as one-hundred-fifty hours of research went into about twenty pages or 6 percent of the final manuscript. Even then, I struggled to limit my use of medical terminology by having Koa insist that the doctors speak in plain English. You might be thinking it was a long run for a short slide, but it’s thorough research that informs the little details that make a story both captivating and believable.
You can read more about Robert McCaw and his books on his website and also follow him on Facebook and Twitter. Fire and Vengeance is available in ebook and audiobook formats from all major bookstores now, with the hardcover edition to follow in September.
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