A Death of Honor was the second novel I wrote and the first published. Originally it was a "throw away" idea. I was writing Desperate Measures and had gotten the idea for this bit where a man was investigating a crime himself because the police were too backed up to do it themselves. So I wrote the first chapter and passed it on to someone who was in a writer’s group with me. She was going to write a second chapter and pass it on to someone else, etc. Time went by and I finished DM. In that time I really started thinking about Payne’s predicament, and the woman with the chapter hadn’t done anything with it yet. So I got the first chapter back from her and finished the book.

Incidentally, Trinina was going to simply be a walk on part to show that Payne had lots of baggage. But my wife read the chapter that introduced her and said she really liked her as a character and wondered how she would fit into what I was doing. I couldn’t let my wife down, could I? So I started thinking about that and Trinina really came in and took over the story. It’s a better book because of that.