Long before Cordell Logan ever taxied onto the page in his beat-up Cessna 172, the Ruptured Duck, I spent my days—and too many nights—chasing leads as an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Back then, my world smelled like newsroom coffee and the faint whiff of panic as another deadline closed in. Today, the aroma tends more toward avgas and the warmth of a sunbaked runway. But the truth is, the journey from newsroom to hangar wasn’t a reinvention. It was an evolution. The skills I sharpened digging for stories are the same ones I lean on every time Logan finds himself in trouble. Which is to say, constantly.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but being a journalist—and, later, working in the intelligence community–was the best training ground imaginable for writing aviation-driven crime fiction.
The best reporters share one simple trait: they’re nosy. Professionally nosy. Pathologically nosy. Tell us “no comment” and that only makes us dig deeper. Tell us something doesn’t add up and we’ll spend the next month trying to make the math work. That instinct is hardwired into Cordell Logan. He’s a guy who can’t help noticing when details don’t fit—the dent that couldn’t have come from where the witness claims, the alibi that feels too practiced, the muffled tone of a man hiding something behind his eyes. Logan has pilot instincts, sure. But he’s also the inheritor of those newsroom genes—always scanning for things that are out of place.
Curiosity might kill cats (apologies for the cliché), but in investigative reporting and mystery writing, it’s the spark that keeps the engine turning.
As a reporter, I learned early that the difference between an average news story and a front-page, above-the-fold, award winner lies less in volume than it does in precision and detail.
I once spent weeks tracking down a law-enforcement source who could confirm a small but crucial procedural failure inside a high-stakes investigation. It was the kind of detail that would barely earn a sentence in the final article—yet without it, the story lacked credibility.
Flying teaches that same lesson, only with higher consequences. Overlook a crucial detail in the cockpit and you aren’t getting a phone call from your editor; you’re getting a visit from the NTSB—assuming you’re still lucky enough to be alive.
So in the Logan series, I try to honor both disciplines. Aviation is inherently technical, but thriller fans don’t show up to read a pilot operator’s handbook. They want to feel the stall buffet in their stomachs, not read a dissertation on angle of attack. Journalism trained me to identify the details that matter and ditch the ones that don’t—an underrated skill when your protagonist spends a lot of time dodging bullets and pulling G’s.
One of the first things they don’t tell you in journalism school is that the truth rarely arrives in clean, declarative sentences. More often, it’s hiding in the hesitation between two words, the micro-pause before someone answers, the shift in tone when you press just a little harder.
As a pilot talking to ATC, you learn the same thing. A controller’s clipped phrasing might mean things are getting busy. A bit of strain in the voice might suggest weather is degrading faster than forecast. You read the tone as much as the words.
In my books, Logan listens like that—like a reporter and a pilot rolled into one. His understanding of people comes from years of inherently comprehending what isn’t said. That instinct came straight from my years in the trenches of journalism.
If you spend any time in a newsroom or on an airport ramp, you’ll meet more characters than you can ever hope to fit into a book: the crusty line guy who knows every airplane’s quirks; the editor who could dismantle the draft of investigative piece with one raised eyebrow; the retired pilot whose stories always start with “This one time, over Bakersfield…”; the source who insists on meeting only in dimly lit bars.
As a reporter for the Times, and for the two daily newspapers in Colorado I worked before moving to California, I met plenty of memorable people—whistleblowers, military guys, cops, grieving families, political operatives, and the occasional individual who probably would’ve preferred I lose their phone number forever. In aviation circles, I’ve met instructors, mechanics, veterans, and fellow pilots who embody the courage, eccentricity, and gallows humor that define GA flying.
Those personalities seep into Logan’s world. Not as literal copies, but as raw material. Fiction thrives on authenticity, and nothing is more authentic than the unpredictable human beings you meet when you spend your life asking uncomfortable questions or flying machines that don’t always behave.
Both journalism and flying have a way of humbling you. In the air, mistakes carry consequences. The same is true in reporting—errors, even small ones, can damage reputations, derail investigations, or betray the trust of sources who risked everything to speak. That’s why Logan’s world is built on accountability. When he screws up, people get hurt. That’s not melodrama; that’s reality, filtered through the lens of a murder mystery.
In reporting, the thrill is in the chase—the moment you uncover the missing piece. In flying, it’s lifting off into a sky that always feels bigger and more beautiful than you remembered. In writing, it’s when a scene snaps into place and suddenly the story has lift.
Looking back, the path from newsroom to cockpit to fiction wasn’t odd at all. It was inevitable. They’re all pursuits of precision, curiosity, and truth—three things Cordell Logan himself can’t resist.
And frankly, neither can I.