When I heard the news that Thomas Perry was publishing a new book in the Butcher’s Boy series, I was thrilled. By the way, the book is called The Informant, and yes, I’ve pre-ordered. As a reader, Mr. Perry’s two Butcher’s Boy novels simply blew me away. At the time, I was reading all kinds of books. Everything from Stephen King to James Clavell to Robert Ludlum.

In talking with other fans of Mr. Perry’s, I believe I actually read the books out of order. Because the first book, The Butcher’s Boy, may have only been released in hardcover. The sequel, Sleeping Dogs, was released in mass market paperback. So I’m almost positive I read Sleeping Dogs first.

Fast forward many years later. I had already set out on the course of being a writer. At the time, I was writing short stories, poetry, non fiction, literary fiction, historical fiction, Westerns, pretty much any story that came into my head, I wrote.

The only “success” if you want to call it that – was that I was learning. Most of it was quite dreadful, but even though deeply pessimistic about my writing, I was able to admit that each story seemed to be just a smidgen better than the last.

But I vividly remember finishing a project, a short story, and feeling the itch to write another novel. However, instead of rushing headlong into the idea, I sat back and thought about it. Really, really thought about it. And I remembered the piece of writing advice that I had always considered sound: Write the kind of book you want to read. →