After the Navy I wrote a lot and read a lot, and then met Anne Marie and had kids and got jobs and pretty much stopped reading and writing. Then, in 1976, I got into the antiquarian book business and got to read and write to my heart’s content. I read histories, bibliographies and biographies, and I wrote catalogs of used books for sale. Our family went through some lean years while I was learning my trade, but in the end it proved to be a very satisfying job.

When Galen got killed my earlier interest in writing resurfaced. Writing a book was my focus in this difficult time; my revenge initially, and ultimately my salvation. While I was working on the book, I thought a lot about Raymond Chandler, Norman Maclean, Frederick Exley and Herman Melville. I listened to the music of Thelonious Monk, Abdullah Ibrahim, Muddy Waters and Beethoven. I rooted for the Red Sox and drank Jack Daniels and read all the “Spencer” novels. And yes, the last scene in my book actually was inspired by the movie “Repo Man,” that profound spiritual document of the 1980s.