Writer's Digest: C. J. Box: Read Across Genres Author C. J. Box discusses what inspired him to write his new mystery novel, Three-Inch Teeth.
What prompted you to write this book?
Over the past decade, the number of grizzly bear “encounters” with humans in Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain West has continued to increase. In several chilling instances, bears have attacked without any kind of obvious provocation. Humans like to think of themselves as the ultimate apex predator, but that simply isn’t the case in the mountains anymore.
In several cases, people did all the things they’re “supposed” to do to avoid bear attacks, like hanging food from trees far from their camp, not getting between sows and cubs, and carrying bear spray. But those measures didn’t save them from attack.
In Three-Inch Teeth, I wanted to explore the primal fear grizzly bears invoke in people as well as a couple of human predators that are just as ruthless and unpredictable.