It was fifteen months ago—yes, way back in October the year before last—when I decided to write a book called The Mosquito God—Theodore Roosevelt’s Spy Game. All that I knew then was that it would be set in the waning days of the French attempt to dig a canal across the Isthmus of Panama.

It’s not terribly well-known that the French spent twenty years trying to dig what is today the Panama Canal. In fact, they almost half-finished the thing, but by then too many workers had died (in excess of 20,000), and too much money had been spent, and in swept Theodore Roosevelt and picked it all up for pennies on the dollar.

It then took the Americans another eleven years to finish the thing.

It’s a fascinating story, but there’s little written in English about the French part of the effort. Most people probably think that the Americans dreamed it up and dug it out, but that is not so--and I thought that part of the story needed telling. Moreover, there was something götterdämmerrung-y about the ultimate collapse of the French effort that drew me in. Why did they fail? And how much did Theodore Roosevelt know about what was going on in Panama while under French control?

Naturally I assumed that Teddy must have had spies down there, and so Hannah Black and Max Bellefonte announced themselves to me as TR’s eyes and ears in the Isthmus. They became my first two characters, and were soon joined by the mysterious Claire André and her sugar-daddy, Henri Marquet—who happens to be the director-general of the whole French canal project.

But, beyond that, what was the story? Now that took some figuring out, and over almost a year-and-a-half (from the extensive research required to the actual writing), I must have cursed the whole project—and myself—at least a dozen times. It was a book that kept changing on me, offering up new insights and surprising revelations about my characters. And, as usual, I had to follow along.

That was different—for me—since normally I can go from idea to manuscript in six months or so. But it taught me something. As plagued with self-doubt as I was at times, I doggedly stuck to my method (see the videos on the Brighton Method, if you care), telling myself that ‘it has always worked’ . . . and once again, it did. (Thank heavens.)

What finally emerged from all this sturm und drang (it’s hard to resist the German terms for such turbulent emotional states) is quite a fascinating story, I think, with some very odd characters and very odd incidents. I’m pleased with it—at long last—and in fact there’s something more than a little weird about the book that I find especially appealing. In case you’re wondering, The Mosquito God is halfway between the ‘gritty’ Robert Brighton (The Buffalo Butcher, for example) and the ‘good’ Robert Brighton (Winter in the High Sierra).

In two weeks, the manuscript goes off to my editor, and at that point it’s no longer ‘my’ book—it becomes yours. [You’ll see it in print, e-book, and audiobook (narrated by yours truly) around Labor Day of this year. (Of course it’ll go on pre-sale before that.)]

It’ll take a month for the manuscript to return to me for my final puts and takes, and in that time I hope to do very little writing—a lot of playing guitar and catching up with a to-do list that never seems to diminish. Whether I can stand to be away from writing for a whole month is an open question: I’ve been at it pretty continually for seven years now, and it’s become my life. Whenever I do open up my notebook again—whether after a day of idleness or a month—my publisher has asked me to turn back to romance. (Winter in the High Sierra was the Number One New Release on Amazon, after all, and no rational publisher is going to ignore that kind of ‘market signal’.)

And so that’s what I’ll do. I have some ideas, but I’m going to leave them marinate for a while—until I can’t. Looking into the future—as best one can—there will be two more Avenging Angels books in that series, and (presumably) other stories that I haven’t dreamed up yet.

Anyhow, fifteen months is a long time to live with a book, and I’m happy that I survived it and that the resulting story is worth your time (and mine).