Without Blood was published in French in 2010. Obviously, this book was all about the birth of Victor Lessard, but I didn’t know it initially...

As I started writing the first chapters, the story revolved more around Simone’s character and the surreal nature of certain aspects of her journey.

Then, what was supposed to be a simple patrol officer dispatched to investigate the hit and run that Simone was victim of, quickly became who you now know to be sergeant-detective Victor Lessard, a character that came with sufficient personal damage and empathy for Simone.

The ultimate giveaway came when Robert B. Parker began running an author’s photo on his book jackets showing him in poses with his dog. For years, and over the course of a dozen or more novels in Parker’s compelling series featuring the Boston private eye Spenser, I had figured that Parker, in shaping Spenser’s personality and back story, had borrowed elements from his own life and grafted them on to his fictional guy Spenser. Parker had fought in the Korean War; so did Spenser.