Shadow Season by Tom Piccirilli

Tom Piccirilli is a scrappy brawler. He'll take on any literary challenge, and occasionally emerges the worse for it. But through each effort, you can count on him inflicting a fuselade of words upon you; a complex mash of stream-of-conscience, snappy dialog, and some riveting imagery.

Finn is working as a teacher at an all-girls private school in upstate New york. This would not be his lot in life, except that he was blinded while working as a police officer. Winter break wraps the school in isolation, and only a paltry few remain to weather the long dark nights. Boredom begins to unravel towards mystery and horror when Finn literally stumbles upon an injured girl while walking through a nearby graveyard. Much of the story incorporates Finn's struggles to cope with and adjust to his disability. Piccirilli uses Finn's blindness almost like a separate character within his tale, this is how large a part it plays in Finn's existence. The author's fumbling moments can be ignored, and to a great degree, disbelief suspended, thanks to his knack for delivering a significant impact with short sharp jabs, compact sentences dense with ideas and emotion.

Piccirilli has made a conscious effort to move away from his writing origins, those being primarily horror/dark fiction. I often greet these evolutions with disappointment; it's rarely good to see a genre lose a quality contributor. However, Piccirilli's style may in fact lend itself more readily to the very dark, noirish atmosphere found in Shadow Season. Keep the good gritty stories coming, Tom.