In Brandon Vanderkool, American author Jim Lynch has created an oddly endearing – and possibly enduring – character with a strong local angle.

The unlikely hero of Lynch's latest novel, Border Songs (Random House, Canada), is a six-foot-eight, severely dyslexic young man working for the U.S. Border Patrol, often just a stone's throw across the line from South Surrey's Zero Avenue.

An enthusiastic bird watcher and spontaneous art creator, the ungainly, dairy farm-raised Brandon is far more comfortable with the animals and natural environment of Whatcom County than humankind.

But his very out-of-sync quality is just what makes him an almost uncanny observer of what is out of place, a valuable talent to possess in a post 9-11 climate of fear about security and potential invasion by "terrorists," even if border-runners are more likely to turn out to be illegal immigrants or entrepreneurs smuggling highly profitable B.C. bud.

Already winning praise internationally, Border Songs is a work full of wry humour, rich in character and observation of the realities of life on both sides of the border. But it is also a book that – like Lynch's first published novel, The Highest Tide – offers some underlying insights into the human condition.

The Washington State author's earlier book was a coming-of-age tale narrated by Miles O'Malley, a 13-year-old whose passion for marine wildlife, and discovery of a giant squid in Puget Sound, makes him a sudden celebrity.

Highest Tide not only established Lynch firmly as a storyteller in the tradition of Larry McMurtry, it also put him on the radar screen for those seeking material suitable for adaptation to other media.

Jane Jones, of the Seattle-based Book-It Repertory Theatre, created a play version of the 2006 novel which had a well-received three-week run last year, while a movie adaptation by actor, director and producer Fisher Stevens is in pre-production.

Little surprise, then, that Border Songs has already received nibbles from producers interested in creating a television series around Brandon (and Book-It plans a stage adaptation, if they can find an actor tall enough).

If an adaptation of Border Songs comes to the small screen, it just might be that rarest of all birds – a series shot in our own backyard that's actually about... our own backyard.

An award-winning former Seattle Times and Oregonian reporter who lives in Olympia with his wife and daughter, Lynch, 46, acknowledges location is as vital to him as another character when crafting his fiction, as he told Peace Arch News during the B.C. leg of a recent Canadian promotional tour.

"I have these settings I decide on, then the stories sort of rise up from them," he said.

"I kind of fell in love with this area when I came up here to report on smuggling and the 'cannabis culture' in B.C. versus our 'war on drugs' – something I found very amusing at the time.

"But western Washington, western Oregon and western B.C. is some of the lushest, most incredible countryside around – I couldn't help but want to put that setting in a story."

Lynch came back to the border just after 9-11, at the time the U.S. tripled the border patrol, and did some ride-alongs with them. And he found himself fascinated, he said, at the way the informal atmosphere of the border, with its neighboring farms "just across a ditch," had changed overnight.

"I grew up in the Seattle area – as a kid I used to play soccer in Vancouver – and the Peace Arch has always been what the border is about to me.

"It was an odd thing to suddenly be 'at war' – as through there was an invisible fence in an area that used to be so casual. I've travelled in Europe, and it's easier to go from France to Germany – with all their history of bloodshed – than it is to cross our border."

Evidence of Lynch's affection for B.C. – and understanding of attitudes north of the border – can be seen in such Canadian characters as ultra-liberal retired college professor Wayne Rousseau ("although I've been told he's far too rude to be a Canadian" Lynch laughs) and his daughter Madeline, a childhood playmate of Brandon's, who's been drawn, uneasily, to the fast cash of grow-ops and pot-smuggling networks.

There's even a snapshot description of White Rock and a depiction of a fictional, if not entirely unrecognizable, Marine Drive eatery.

But there's no real-world original for the character of Brandon, who "evolved over time, according to my needs."

"The character in my first book was a four-foot-eight kid, so I kind of dared myself to write tall. I also wanted him to have unusual vision, a unique way of seeing things. I have some dyslexic friends and some understanding of Asberger's Syndrome which suggested some of his characteristics."

While he admits there's a strong nature thread in his work so far, he's giving himself another challenge with his next book, set in Seattle – "to write urban."

The jump from journalism – which he loved doing – to novel-writing came fairly naturally, he said.

"It's not that I saw the newspaper business was sinking or anything," he said.

"But writing fiction was something I always loved to do – I was always writing it while I was doing journalism. I wrote a couple of novels in the `90s and received some flattering rejections. But I promised myself that if wrote a novel that could sell, I would do it full time."

Lynch has some strong ideas about what makes a good novel.

"Originality is key," he said. "And I think narrative momentum is very important. People think that if you're not writing a suspense novel, you don't have to worry about that. But you still need to pull the reader along. I think that comes from being a journalist – we all have a fear of people setting the newspaper down before they get to the jump."