It’s out in only three days. And it’s been a long road.

I started writing Big Shield three years ago. Like the 10 or so other novels I’ve hunt-and-pecked to completion in the past five years, I started it, finished it, set it aside, and started on the next one.

Eventually, we tried to find a home for Big Shield with one of the major book publishers. One in particular suggested a fairly important change. The three-storyline book had two that worked, and one that didn’t quite fit. So I sawed off the third leg of the stool and built a new one.

The end result was that a collateral figure — the bumbling mobster named Johnny Motts — became a central character. He’s now arguably the main character in the story. (For a taste of his exploits and his mindset, here’s a free chapter that wa

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