Navasota library host Down Range author Taylor Moore

Adventure and intrigue are hallmarks of Taylor Moore’s life. Whether it’s his service as a former CIA intelligence officer or a landman on the High Plains of Texas, the Navasota native has woven his life’s experiences into those of fictional character Garrett Kohl in his recently released Western thriller, Down Range. Readers will have the opportunity to meet Moore at a book talk at 1 p.m., Saturday, March 19, at the Navasota Public Library.

Described by critics as electrifying, intense and authentic, Down Range is just the first in a series featuring hero Kohl and takes the reader from Kabul to Amarillo and into the dangerous world of drug cartels in the “haunting landscape of the Texas panhandle.”

A taste for adventure

Moore graduated from Navasota High School in 1993 and credits teachers Terry Pederson (McElroy), Beverly Condrey and coach Lee Condrey with instilling in him a love of history and global affairs.

Moore said, “My favorite subject was social studies. People kind of forget about social studies but I love the study of people, places and different cultures.”

He continued, “I grew up on a farm and ranch out in the country. I might be out in a pasture and look up at jet flying over and I always wondered where they were going and I thought, ‘Man, I’d like to get on that jet have an adventure and see what’s out there.’”

After his graduation from Texas A&M with a Journalism Degree, Moore said, “The love of adventure for one, and two that intellectual curiosity, sent me on to grad school at Pepperdine where I studied public policy, more specifically economics and international relations - going back to that social studies about how things work, how countries work and how societies function.”

Moore worked for the CIA during the George W. Bush administration and as a defense contractor in military intelligence during the Barack Obama years.

Moore said, “The global war on terror was in full swing then.”

Reinventing himself

Returning to the States, Moore worked in San Antonio and met his wife. After the birth of their children, the family moved to Amarillo where Moore was intent on continuing his work in the intelligence community.

He said, “I never planned on leaving, but in Amarillo there wasn’t anything for me to do. I sort of reinvented myself in the oil and gas industry. My family had some oil and gas so I knew a little bit about it. I started a whole new career.”

He continued, “I actually wrote my first book in 2000 and never really did anything with it. I wrote it just for fun. It wasn’t until I was up here working in oil and gas when I was encouraged to write again. One of the first ranches I started drilling some wells was on John R. Erickson’s place. He does the Hank the Cow Dog series. John and I became friends and he encouraged me to start writing again. I started writing for fun and eventually I thought ‘Well, maybe I can do this for a living.’”

Down Range

As for the fictional Garrett Kohl, Moore described Kohl’s adventures as a “melding of worlds.”

Moore said, “What if I take a guy who is sort of a law and order cowboy type from Texas, a DEA Special Agent and put him in the gray world of the CIA. I took my own experiences about what it’s like to be in the CIA and plopped someone down into it and let them navigate a place that doesn’t always play by the same rules as everyone else. That’s kind of how that book came about.”

He continued, “Where it takes place is literally where I was working for years on all these big ranches, getting to know the landowners and hearing stories. Really, every part of that book is a piece of me that culminated into a story along the way.”

Write and finish!

While initially intent on self-publishing, Moore was encouraged to go the traditional publishing house route by Panhandle neighbors and New York Times bestselling authors, Jodi Thomas and Linda Broday.

Moore said, “I thought it was an impossibility. This can’t happen. Nobody does it. It’s infinitesimal the number of writers who make it to that. It is hard, I’m not going to lie, but it can be done.”

He continued, “It’s not for the faint of heart. You go through a lot of rejection to get there but once you get there, there are a lot of pluses to it. Several of which are the apparatus they have to help you getting publicity… and the reach the publisher has to get you into every library and bookstore in America. There are definitely some advantages to it if you can.”

Moore’s best advice for would-be authors is to write and finish a book.

He said, “It sounds really obvious but what I mean is people start writing all the time but they never actually finish anything. If you just like to write, this is your release and this is fun, then write a million books and never finish them but if you really have aspirations to try to get published, the bottom line is that you have to write something and you have to finish it – even if this isn’t the book you plan on putting out there.”

He continued, “There’s something mental about actually finishing up and putting that bow on top of it and saying this thing is done. That doesn’t compare to anything else.”

Note: Firestorm, the second in the Garrett Kohl series, is scheduled for release Aug. 16 and is available for preorder. According to Moore, he’s already hard at work on book No. 3! Readers can follow Moore at www.facebook.com/taylor. moore.5076 or go to https:// taylormoorebooks.com.