The Walls of the Castle

From four-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award, two-time winner of the International Thriller Writers Award, and finalist for the 2009 Edgar Allan Poe Award Tom Piccirilli comes an intense and visceral psychological thriller novella, the first title in the Black Labyrinth imprint.

In the labyrinthian maze of endless corridors, annexes, and wings of the enormous medical complex known as the Castle prowls a grief-stricken man determined to redeem himself and bring justice for those victims incapable of doing it for themselves.

During the four months that his son lay dying, ex-con Kasteel lost his job, his wife, and nearly his mind. He became a fixture at the Castle, a phantom prowling the halls in the deep night, a shadow of his former self until he faded from sight and was forgotten altogether.

Now, without any life to return to, he takes it upon himself to become the Castle's guardian. He lives off the grid hiding among the hundreds of miles of twisting passages, rooms, offices, and underground parking structures. Despair, confusion, and terror are the natural state and trade of any hospital: Not only must the patients endure disease and infirmity, but others are victims of physical and sexual abuse from the outside world or from cruel security guards.

The Castle was originally a colonial Dutch settlement: a village that grew into a town that grew into a city and at last became a hospital. Kasteel has lost his very identity to this place, taking for himself the original Dutch name for "Castle". Kasteel sleeps in empty operating theaters, sneaks food from the cafeteria, hacks into computers, and is privy to both staff and patient files. Using his skills as a burglar, he tracks down the attackers, the deceivers, and the killers.