What inspired you to write “Sold Out?”

“Sold Out” was inspired by Stephen Hunter’s book “Point of Impact” — still one of my all-time favorite books of all time.

“Sold Out” is a Marine Sniper/CIA Thriller that is in many ways similar to Hunter’s book. I loved how fun Stephen Hunter’s book was and I wanted to write something similar: Just pure pace and action and setback-after-setback.

But “Sold Out” was super difficult and took me twelve years to write. (The plot is ridiculously complicated and covers multiple states.) I probably would have never finished it had I not finally just let it go and thought, “I need to just write a simple book and get an easy win.”

So, I wrote “Little Man, and the Dixon County War,” which is a thriller set in a Western time period — think “Django Unchained.” Then, once I had finished “Little Man” and began feeding off its positive reviews and sales, I picked up the book that had taunted me and mocked me for more than a decade.

“Sold Out” will probably always mean more to me than any other book I ever write.