As with many of my novels, the notion for Bone was borne of a sense of outrage - - this time over the sorry state of affairs in a country as wealthy as the United States where so many impoverished, mentally ill people are forced to live on the streets. I had my setting; being a mystery writer, I naturally had to have a mystery, as well as a corpse or two. I did more research on this novel, on amnesia as well as the milieu of the homeless in New York City, than for any other. The opening scene came to me almost at once, but the rest came very gradually; I was halfway through the first draft before I even discovered where Bone came from, and what he did.