Write what you know? The Slade novels have covered voodoo, headhunting, goth rock, forensics, the London sewer system, Lovecraft, Chinese medicine, bigfoot, yeti, Custer's last stand, Darwin, psychology, Agatha Christie, Jack the Ripper, Africa safaris, Mountie history, native culture, totem poles, Red Power, Stonehenge, gladiators, Hadrian's Wall, Culloden, the Gulf Islands, ebola, the history of hanging, ancient Egypt, aging, the porn industry, plastic surgery, Captain Cook, the World Horror Convention, the cannibal islands, Hitler's bunker, the Roswell Incident, terrorism, the crucifixion of Jesus, locked rooms, dying messages, the Winter Olympics, and much more. All those elements are researched and worked into softboiled/hardboiled/police procedure tales of the RCMP. How's it done, and how you can you use the same techniques to plot novels about your specific interests?