Phil Kent is an author. Bill Lander is a professor.
The two men have been best of friends since at least their college days where they both played on the school's basketball team. 5'9" Kent was the point guard who regularly fed the ball to 6'3" Lander who would score the points. After they graduated, Kent stayed on to earn his doctorate while Lander joined the U.S. Navy and would soon be a member of the SEALs. The close friendship that they had formed remained, though, and now many, many years later, they routinely get together for hunting, fishing, exploring, and whatever else might prove interesting.
It is that last part that invariably gets the two of them into considerable danger. Though they both enjoy their most recent careers, Kent becoming a well known writer of both non-fiction and adventure fiction and Lander becoming a professor at a university in Tennessee, they and often their wives routinely get together for something different and when their curiosities take over, they both refuse to take the time to realize that neither is a young man any more.
One might think that Lander with all his years of experience in the SEALs, a good number of them fighting terrorists, would understand the ramifications of a lot of their "poking their noses" into things. He is routinely complaining to Kent, "Every time you call me for help, you get me involved in some dangerous mission. Sometimes, I don't think you know the difference in the fiction you write and your real life."
While the two men are the principle magnets for the trouble mentioned, both are extremely intelligent and able to get themselves out of many of the messes they find and, if there is a problem they need help with, Kent's wife, Cyndi, is someone they routinely seek out. Her research abilities, her contacts in a wide range of professions, and her quite impressive intellect comes in handy quite a bit. Lander's wife Lisa seems to be the smartest of the group because she largely stays out of the picture and is not around when bullets start flying.