There’s a certain pressure in fiction to make your protagonist likable. Relatable. Sympathetic. You’re supposed to give readers someone they want to root for—someone they’d grab a beer with or follow into battle.

But sometimes, the story demands someone worse.

Someone angry. Someone broken. Someone who’s said and done things you can’t defend.

Someone like Enoch Hoffmann.

When I started writing The Dead of the Day, I knew I wasn’t creating a hero. Enoch is a racist, bitter old man wit...