Foxholes, the debut military thriller by Travis Tougaw
Author Interview + Book & Author Info + Author Pet Corner!
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Foxholes
Suspicious deaths and political ambition collide in Foxholes. Follow Vince Marcotte and Hadley Collins as they join forces to solve a pair of murders before they become the next victims.
Combat veteran Vince Marcotte has hung up his uniform in favor of a quiet, comfortable life. But, ghosts from his past are raised when Nick Batson announces his Senate campaign. Vince is convinced Nick got away with murder 15 years ago when they were both deployed to Afghanistan. When another person close to Nick dies under mysterious circumstances, Vince enlists the help of amateur detective Hadley Collins to prove Nick’s guilt. As they grow closer to the truth, they become Nick’s targets and soon learn that he’ll stop at nothing to achieve his political goals. As Nick barrels toward a campaign victory, Vince races to discover what really happened in Afghanistan. Will he survive long enough to bring Nick to justice?
Foxholes, the first in the Marcotte and Collins Investigative Thriller series, is a page-turning crime thriller. Smart, engaging, and suspenseful, Travis Tougaw’s debut novel will grab your attention on the first page and not let go. Buy it today and get to know your new favorite detectives!
To Foxholes, click on any of the following links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Black Rose Writing, Target & Walmart.
Interview with Debut Author Travis Tougaw — Author of Foxholes
Foxholes features combat veteran Vince Marcotte. What would you like readers to know about him?
When I first started writing Foxholes, I wanted the main character to be an average guy who got caught up in circumstances that are anything but average. He’s a military veteran, but he had a desk job in the Air Force; he’s not a super-soldier like you see in a lot of thrillers.
Vince’s time in combat left him feeling guilty that justice hadn’t been achieved for an airman who died in the combat zone. That guilt propels him forward into the action of the story and keeps him going, despite encounters that are sure to trigger his post-traumatic stress. Part of Vince’s character arc is seeing how he navigates the tension between wanting closure for the airman’s death and trying to avoid stress-inducing situations.
One other interesting thing about Vince is that I first “met” him in 2006, when I was working on another political thriller. As I started writing Foxholes, I realized that Vince was the perfect character for this novel. So, although the 2006 thriller never published, a big piece of that novel will live on in the Foxholes series.
Foxholes also features amateur detective Hadley Collins. What would you like readers to know about her?
Hadley was one of my favorite characters to write in this book. She’s younger than Vince, more energetic, and has a better sense of how to conduct detective work. Hadley doesn’t have the same emotional attachment to this case as Vince, so she’s able to maintain an objective distance.
Hadley’s day job is as a computer security consultant; she’s self-employed, so she can dedicate as much time to detective work as she’d like. Her techno-wizardry allows her to bring some gadgetry to the case and help Vince gather important clues.
For Enneagram lovers, Hadley is a “five” (like her author), so detective work is a perfect fit for her. In Enneagram typology, the five is the investigator, someone who enjoys the pursuit of knowledge and likes to figure things out. Hadley is driven to see the case through in Foxholes by her innate sense of wanting to know what happened and to put a puzzle together.
I enjoyed writing Hadley’s character so much that I decided to feature her in the second book of the series. Captives, which publishes in June 2024, focuses on a case where Hadley is the lead detective and tells more of her backstory.
What drew you to writing about events that occurred in Afghanistan for your debut novel, Foxholes?
I was in the Air Force for 9 years and spent January – May 2007 at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan.
Thank you for your service!
When the U.S. withdrew from the country in 2021, there was a lot of media coverage from Bagram, showing the rush to evacuate the country and images of the Taliban re-taking the base after the U.S. was gone. That led me to question how successful the war had been and how much we had actually accomplished.
In the midst of that, I thought about how other veterans would react to the withdrawal, particularly those whose combat experience had been more difficult than mine. I wanted to tell a story that shows the long-term effects of war, but I didn’t want the story to be solely about the war. I decided to use Afghanistan as a setting for a murder mystery.
What kind of research did you have to do to create combat veterans and amateur sleuths?
As you can guess from my previous answer, I didn’t have to do a lot of research into the combat experience. The events in Foxholes are fiction, but they are informed by my experiences in Afghanistan. Likewise, the characters are made up, but they are people who could have been in the military, and some of them share characteristics with people I served with.
Amateur sleuthing, on the other hand, is not something I have personal experience with. I based a lot of the detective activity on how I would go about conducting an investigation and bolstered that with internet research. I also got to serve on a jury for a murder trial, and I learned some fascinating things about forensics and how crime scenes are processed. A bit of that knowledge found its way into the book, as well.
In addition to writing, you play the hammer dulcimer. What brought you to playing that instrument?
Growing up, I listened to the music of Rich Mullins. He was an amazing songwriter and a phenomenal musician who played multiple instruments, including the hammer dulcimer. His music led me to start playing guitar and, eventually, the dulcimer.
What I like about it is that it’s a very simple instrument—once you understand the basic layout of it, it’s very easy to play melodies—but, you can add notes and decoration to give your song layers of complexity.
What are you working on now?
I’m currently writing an adventure-thriller that I’m calling The Other Side of the Island. It involves two estranged brothers, a cult, and a struggle to survive on a mysterious island in the Caribbean.
Stylistically, it’s a departure from what I did in the Foxholes series, in that there is no mystery to solve; the challenge as a writer is to put the reader in the middle of the action and keep the stakes high, so there’s tension throughout. I’m really enjoying writing this one.
Words of Wisdom for Aspiring Writers:
While Foxholes is my debut novel, it’s not my first novel.
That novel I wrote back in 2006-2007 and other projects I’ve taken on since then have been invaluable learning experiences. Conferences, books about writing, and critique groups are all important tools for a writer’s development, but there is no substitute for actually writing a book-length work. That’s how you learn what to do when you discover a plot hole halfway through your first draft or how to add complexity to a plot when you hit 40,000 words and you realize your story is over.
My advice for aspiring writers is to practice the craft and not to get discouraged if you aren’t getting published. The effort is not wasted.
Great advice!
Author Pet Corner!
Lola is a Great Pyrenees/Newfoundland mix.
We adopted her as a rescue in the summer of 2022. We think she’s around 4.5 years old.
She was in a lot of different homes and foster situations in her early years, and she’s enjoying having stability in her life now.
Travis Tougaw — Author of Foxholes
Travis Tougaw is a writer and editor.
He earned degrees in English from Angelo State University in Texas and the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
An Air Force veteran, Travis has worked in a variety of roles, including English teacher, employee educator, and health care administrator.
He is the author of the Marcotte/Collins Investigative Thrillers series, set in Colorado. In his free time, Travis enjoys reading, playing musical instruments, trivia, and spending time with his family. He lives in Colorado with his wife and children.
To learn more about Travis, click on any of the following links: Facebook, Twitter & Website
Elena Taylor/Elena Hartwell
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