Sheldon Siegel can tell you exactly where he was on July 1, 1993. That day that is etched in his memory. It was a day that inadvertently launched a new career. A day when things changed, forever. July 1, 1993 was his “bottom of the ninth” moment.At 2:57 p.m. on that particular Thursday, Sheldon was working in his office at 101 California Street in downtown San Francisco. You see, Sheldon is an attorney, and on that particular day he was in his office at Pettit and Martin doing whatever it is that lawyers do when a gunman entered the building, made his way to the 34th floor and began shooting. “It was three o’clock in the afternoon on July 1, 1993. I was sitting in my office at Pettit & Martin on the thirty-sixth floor of the 101 California tower when a crazed former client came to our offices with two AK-47 semi-automatic machine guns and a loaded pistol. He gunned down eight people and wounded a half dozen others. It was the worst day of my life. I was lucky. He never made his way to the thirty-sixth floor. The 101 California massacre, as it has come to be known, had a profound impact on me in many ways. It made me appreciate my wife and kids. It gave me some greater perspective. It made me terribly uncomfortable about writing a book about a murder in a law firm. On the other hand, it made me think about all of the things that I wanted to do. It made me appreciate that you should try to do those things sooner rather than later. One of the things I wanted to do was to write a novel.”