"I was exploring my own terror of blindness.  I've been wearing glasses since I was ten and now that I'm middle-aged the idea of my going blind has become a greater fear.  I spent most of my time writing the novel with my eyes closed, which sounds goofy, I know, but the truth is that it helped me to get into character.  How would I deal with certain issues, how would I feel if a hand came out of nowhere and clutched my arm?  What would draw my attention?  I couldn't write with any visual details or concrete images.  There was a greater emphasis on sensuality.  Finn is forced to "see" the people in his life by basing them on others he knew while he was still sighted.  So not only is he uprooted by his blindness but also because the past is always drawing him backward."

As an author of twenty novels, Piccirilli first made his mark in the horror and fantasy genres, winning multiple awards including the Bram Stoker, World Fantasy Award, and Le Grand Prix de L'Imaginaire.  But don't think of him as just a horror and fantasy writer.  He has been nominated for the Edgar and has won ITW's Best Paperback Original Novel.

"I've tried to leave the labels behind and just call myself a noir writer or crime writer, which seems to have a wider umbrella.   Scenes can be thrilling or suspenseful or horrific in their own right.  I write dark fiction, more reality-based in recent years simply because the older I get the more interested I'm in authenticity than in the fantastical.  When you're young you look ahead, you world-build, you fantasize, you ask the big questions of good and evil and God and soul and all that.  When you're older you look back and try to understand where you've been and what's led you to where you are.  You try to make sense of your history."

Mark Combes is an avid sailor and Scuba diver and travels extensively in the Caribbean pursuing his passions. He works in book publishing and RUNNING WRECKED is his first novel.