San Diego, CA – On Saturday, March 13, 2010 we celebrated St. Patrick’s Day with the San Diego Chapter of law enforcement’s Emerald Society.  After the parade, the society raised money for care packages to be sent to the armed forces serving in Iraq and for breast cancer research.  I was pleased to participate in the festivities and the charitable giving.

The Palm Restaurant, San Diego – My good friend, Jane Mitchell, program host from Channel 4 San Diego and Rob Katz, Assistant General Manager of The Palm, joined me at the signing of my caricature on the wall commemorating THE RUN.

Stearn’s Wharf, Santa Barbara, CA – We were on holiday and were delighted to find someone willing to take the time to read a chapter or two. ”One-Eyed Bones” really seemed to enjoy the violence and became a quick fan. Go figure? Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy Holiday to all friends and fans of THE RUN.       

I was fortunate enough to see the band live at The Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, CA last night.  Their high energy show rocked the house for over two hours.  It was a very timely and fitting exclamation point to our year long “collaboration”.  

Louisville, KY – THE RUN was proud to celebrate it’s official Louisville launch at the 21C Museum Hotel on October 28, 2009.  The hotel was ranked #6 in the world in the 2009 Conde Nast Traveler Reader’s Choice Awards with a score of 97.2.  It was the only U.S. hotel to make it in the top 20.  Pictured here are Joan Fiorito, our friends Clare Evans, General Manager of the 21C Museum Hotel, Maggie Cassaro, Alan and Linda Applegate.

Paradise Island, The Bahamas – The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders were very enthusiastic about having their 2010 swimsuit calendar released in the same month as THE RUN.  Pictured above from left to right are Meagan Sharp with Mark, Cassie Trammell, Joan Fiorito, choreographer Judy Trammell and Melissa Kellerman.  Below are Trisha Trevino, Tia Williams and Kaitlin Ilseng. 

Many readers really liked the THE RUN’s cover and were curious about its origin. During my initial conversations with Hayley Love, my editor at Wheatmark Publishing, I expressed a desire to be directly involved with the book’s front and back cover design. I figured who, better than me at that point, had a greater understanding of the story. She graciously agreed and was enthusiastic about my participation.

I always had a specific idea using rough photographs. This was an action story and photos seemed more visual and therefore, would come across more forceful. My wife Joan and I spent several days driving around taking digital shots of the border fence, main crossing, walls of graffiti, etc … One day we found ourselves atop a ridgeline above Border Field State Park and were abruptly escorted out of the area by the Border Patrol. Apparently, we had driven too close to an X spot and into a restricted zone.

An even more daunting task was trying to find the precise broken windshield shot for the front cover. I was armed with Ben Nye stage blood and it seemed like we tried to get into every auto wrecker and junkyard in Chula Vista and were unceremoniously turned away again and again because of insurance reasons. Don’t ask … I never really got a straight answer. Finally, one owner was cool enough to let us in and permitted me to throw around all the fake blood I wanted until I found the right looking car and the perfect photo. All he asked for in return was a copy of the book, which I gladly sent him.

I then used the computer to create some unusual effects. I forwarded the images to Hayley, who proceeded to pick out the exact ones that I would have chosen and arranged them in the ideal order. The edgy lettering and chapter fonts were her design and in my opinion, she made an excellent choice.

Roman Oben was inducted in the University of Louisville Hall of Fame on Friday, October 9, 2009.  Roman played in the NFL 12 years with the New York Giants, San Diego Chargers and Super Bowl Champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  He was excited to receive his author’s copy of THE RUN.  Pictured here from left are his son Andre, his wife, Linda, son Roman, Jr., Joan Fiorito, Mark Fiorito and Roman.

I tried to place the readers in an unfamiliar and terrifying situation in a real world setting. The locale and environment in which THE RUN was to take place needed to feel authentic and true to life yet, at the same time be distant and fiercely unsettling.  There were two types of readers for me to consider when I began this project, those who were familiar with travel in the northern end of Baja, California and those who had never been south of the border. The story needed to be exciting for anyone along for the ride.

Although the novel is fictional, it is based on some of my own experiences, as well as the accounts and tales of others over an extended period of time. I’ve made an honest attempt to be as fair and accurate as possible with the nuances of the Mexican location and dual-country relations and cultures. However, often times it is customarily necessary to take some artistic liberties in order to enhance the narrative. What is it that politicians say, “Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story”?

The span of coastline and cities of Tijuana and Ensenada have changed over the years and in many cases there have been numerous improvements. I’d like to think that I drew my inspiration from the past in addition to the present. It would be sad to think that, “drinking them margaritas in those old cantinas” was a waste of time. Speaking of that, my inspiration for the El Nido Del Pelicano hotel was the Las Rocas resort in Rosarito and the El Gallo Borracho bar was based on Hussong’s cantina in Ensenada.