Rogue Island

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In the fall of 1994, I received a note from a reader praising a “nice little story” I’d written. “In fact,” the note said, “it could serve as the outline for a novel. Have you considered this?”

The note was from Evan Hunter, who wrote the brilliant 87th Precinct police procedurals under the pen name Ed McBain.

I sealed the note in plastic, taped it to my home computer, and started writing.

I was twenty thousand words into the novel when my home and work life both turned upside down. Years flew by. Each time I bought a new computer, I taped Hunter’s note to it, but my busy new life allowed no time for novel writing.

Then, a couple of years ago, I met Otto Penzler, the dean of New York City crime-novel editors, and happened to mention that long-ago note from Hunter.

“Evan never had a good thing to say about anything anyone else wrote,” Penzler said. “He really wrote you that note?”

“He did. I still have it.”

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