Still, detective story or not, When the Bough Breaks might very well have turned out as the gravestone marking the death of my literary aspirations. This was do or die, dude; clichés needed to be shunned.

Hence, a troubled psychologist in a nice home office, instead of a wisecracking PI with a seedy inner-city office, a chronic drinking problem, and a buxom secretary whose barely secret love for the boss inexplicably evades the boss’s notice.

Hence, a detailed, accurate, compelling investigation that didn’t test the limits of reality more than it had to.

Most important: my book would feature no effete amateur prancing about as he shows up the pros. Because I detest books that treat murder like a parlor game. You know the type: plummy-voiced, tuxedoed twits with all the character depth of a sandwich sign huff-huffing in the parlor as a body molders yards away.

What could be more dehumanizing than viewing homicide as just another fatuous riddle, easily solved by applying the flimsiest approximation of logic?

Having witnessed the effects of violence as a psychologist and court consultant, I was determined to communicate the nightmare that is homicide and its repercussions. That proved easy, because Alex Delaware, like me, turned out to be a driven perfectionist whose persistence often draws him into some rather extreme territory. (Several years ago, I delivered the keynote address at the national convention of the American Psychological Association. Facing an audience of a couple thousand shrinks, I felt like the ultimate clinical demonstration. Maybe that’s why I began my speech, “I stand before you as living proof of the positive aspects of the obsessive-compulsive personality.”)

Driven, yes. Able to leap tall buildings by himself, no.

My hero would eschew a tortured relationship with the cops. Not only was that the most hackneyed of plot devices, but experiences working with the courts and the criminal-justice system had taught me that detectives from the private and public sectors often meshed quite well and that experts were well received.

This was going to be a crime novel. I needed a cop.

The problem was, yet another gruff, world-weary homicide dick was the woolliest cliché of all.

On the other hand, a gruff, world-weary gay homicide detective… interesting.

Enter Milo Sturgis.

One of the questions I’m asked most frequently is what led me to make Milo homosexual. The answer is simple: the quest for something new and interesting and original. And what could be more compelling than a man, newly open about his sexuality, whose very presence in the Los Angeles Police Department would engender tension.

The timing was right. Long gone were the days when LA cops routinely busted gay bars-and gay heads. (Though I was able to plumb that brutal territory for flashback scenes in The Murder Book-a novel about which I will have more to say.) Which doesn’t mean that the Los Angeles Police Department during the early eighties was in any way gay friendly. Quite the contrary. Even nowadays, when a handful of gay cops have gone public, I’m doubtful that homosexuality will ever be totally accepted in the paramilitary organization that is the LAPD.

In 1981, there were… ahem… no gay cops in the LAPD. If you believed the official account. I knew from my contacts that there were several gay cops in the LAPD. And that, for the most part, they went about their jobs without much fuss-neither running from nor flaunting their sexuality.

Just cops, like any others, doing the job.

In 1981, “gay but so what” seemed to me a revolutionary concept.

The more I thought about it, the fresher and more innovative became the notion of a homosexual homicide detective operating within a homophobic organization that tolerated him, barely, because he did the job better than anyone else.

But Milo couldn’t be gay-the feather boa, lisping, limp-wristed gay of camp theater and episodic TV and West Hollywood Halloween parades. Because, apart from being the worst sort of cliché, a guy like that wouldn’t survive a single shift in the LAPD. No matter how high his solve rate.

No, the cop I conceptualized would be different: tough, grumpy, sloppy, and also altogether professional and highly intelligent. A homicide veteran with a precarious foothold in the world of law enforcement based on nothing other than raw talent.

Milo ’s homosexuality is right out in the open in When the Bough Breaks, as he announces it to Alex because he doesn’t want Alex to find out some other way and freak out. Alex reacts with surprise, then acceptance. The two of them become friends.

After the book was published, I received a ton of nice mail from gay people along the lines of “I’ve always loved mystery novels, but they’re so homophobic. Thanks so much for Milo.”

Bear in mind that in 1985, gay characters in mainstream fiction were just about nonexistent. No Will & Grace, no Brokeback Mountain . No Project Runway.

Was I out to create a social revolution? Hell, no. With thirteen years of abject failure behind me, I never even expected to publish the darn thing, let alone write a series or build the foundation of a durable career. Looking back, I realize that low expectations fed my courage: with nothing to lose, I had the fortitude to create a novel that, at first glance, had absolutely no commercial potential.

Shrink, gay cop. Scores of molested kids.

Once my editor left, the drones at my publisher opined that the book was weird, hard to characterize, and, y’know, kind of yucky.

The reading public thought otherwise, which is why I answer all my fan mail. But for the graciousness of ordinary folk who took the time to traipse to the bookstore and plunk down their hard-earned dough for that first novel-and all the novels that have followed-I wouldn’t be able to avoid honest labor and work the greatest job in the world.

But back to Milo and the reception he’s received from the reading public over a two-decade tenure.

Straight people rarely complain; in fact, I’ve only received a handful of letters complaining about the “gay agenda” and such. Apparently, most individuals-at least those who read my novels-are tolerant. They buy into “gay but so what” because they understand that whom we sleep with has nothing to do with how effective we are in doing our jobs.

Americans-and people all around the world-believe in live and let live. How nice.

More interesting-and, to me, more amusing-has been the evolution of the response from gay readers.

Shortly after its publication, When the Bough Breaks received an award from an advocacy group aimed at promoting positive images of gay people.

But as gay people gradually began receiving greater focus in books, in films, and on TV, I occasionally became the recipient of snarkiness in the gay press. E.g., “How can Kellerman, as a straight man, presume to write about the gay experience?”

Which is not only narrow-minded and stupid, it betrays an utter lack of understanding about what writing fiction is all about. If I had to limit myself to the confines of my own direct experience, I could never write about women, anyone older than I am, anyone from a different ethnic or religious background. Yes, that sounds obvious, but you’d be amazed at the limited thinking of those who choose to incarcerate themselves in sociopolitical cell blocks.

The apex of reverse discrimination arrived several years ago, in the form of a review in a British gay magazine opining that if Alex Delaware were really a great shrink, he’d realize he was in love with Milo.

I laughed. What else can you do?