Andy Straka’s everyday life differs sharply from the tableaux of his crime fiction. A quiet house in a forested setting. Errands to run, dishes to be cleared, kids to be picked up from school. A nesting pair of red-shoulder hawks live in the ravine off his back deck which might inspire the writer to focus exclusively on nature prose.

Instead those hawks have become the impetus for the creation of Frank Pavlicek, ex-New York homicide detective and Charlottesville, Virginia based private investigator and falconer, who is the star of Straka’s series, the first title of which is A Witness Above.

Andy says he feels blessed to be able to pursue his simultaneous passions for writing hard-boiled mysteries and birds of prey. While not a licensed falconer himself, he nevertheless has spent considerable time in research and in the field with various falconers, and is also on the board of the recently formed Catskill Raptor Rehabilitation Center.