Tom Piccirilli - Horror Suspense Author profile picture

Tom Piccirilli - Horror Suspense Author

The Official MySpace Page of Tom Piccirilli - It's my happening, and it freaks me out!

About Me

I'm the author of seventeen novels including THE MIDNIGHT ROAD, HELLBOY: EMERALD HELL, THE DEAD LETTERS, HEADSTONE CITY, A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN, and NOVEMBER MOURNS. Check out my website and join my newsletter at Epitaphs: The Tom Piccirilli Website
"Suspense keeps dogged pace with the dark, churning emotions...Piccirilli does a scarily precise job delving into the mind of a man so overcome with grief that his irrational actions begin to mirror those of the killer he pursues...his story keeps the pages turning through to the chilling, poignant end."--Publishers Weekly on THE DEAD LETTERS
"[HEADSTONE CITY is] a beautiful and perversely funny sort of crime novel: a hard-boiled hallucination.... [Piccirilli has] the authentic surrealist's gift of blind trust in his imagination, and that enables him to throw off striking metaphors like sparks from a speeding train. There's a manic insouciance in his prose, along with a persistent, unaccountable melancholy. HEADSTONE CITY gives you the distinctive shiver good horror writing—all good writing—provides: the certainty that the writer's own ghosts are in it."–The New York Times Book Review
"[A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN is] A wonderfully wacked, disorienting, fully creepy book."--bestselling author Dean Koontz
"Tom Piccirilli is a powerful, hard-hitting, fiercely original writer of suspense. I highly recommend him."—David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of Creepers
"Piccirilli has hit full stride with THE DEAD LETTERS, reaching the ranks of the best writers in suspense and terror. Piccirilli has arrived and can stand on even ground with the Samsons of the genre, and if this David is as strong as I perceive, he just may put out Stephen King's lights or Dean Koontz's eye."--Robert W. Walker, author of CITY FOR RANSOM and ABSOLUTE INSTINCT
"Relentless, mesmerizing, and just damned fine. THE DEAD LETTERS is the best suspense novel I've read all year, period." -- Steve Hamilton, Edgar Award-Winning Author of A STOLEN SEASON
"Tom Piccirilli's voice is dark, disturbing, and truly original. THE DEAD LETTERS is a riveting story of madness, remorse, and salvation served with a bizarre and brilliant twist."–Jonathan Santlofer, bestselling author of THE DEATH ARTIST and THE KILLING ART
"Tom's first true suspense novel THE DEAD LETTERS is every bit as good as his masterpiece HEADSTONE CITY. And why is it so good? Because while the set up is familiar--man goes in search of the serial killer who murdered his daughter--Tom then proceeds to stand on its head every single serial killer trope I've ever read. And turns this into a very serious Jim Thompsoneque look at the possibility of evil redeeming itself. There are so many original, explosive moments in this book it begs to be filmed. But it works first and foremost as a brilliant, brooding, and sometimes wry novel about the dark condition of the human soul. This is one you can't afford to miss."--Ed Gorman, author of the Sam McCain mystery series .. Home | Browse | Search | Invite | Film | Mail | Blog | Favorites | Forum | Groups | Events | Videos | Music | Comedy | Classifieds

My Interests

Film noir, Asian horror movies, cult classics of the grade-B to Z variety, reading horror and mystery novels, especially Gold Medal classics.

I'd like to meet:

more readers, writers, and creative individuals with a dark bent.

Movies:

Some faves: Seven Beauties, Sunset Boulevard, The Wild Bunch, The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, The Killing, Versus, A Tale of Two Sisters, Ringu, Old Boy, Serenity, Asphalt Jungle, Laura, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Session 9, The Haunting (original, of course), The Exorcist, Kill Bill, Brick, The Host, Shaw Bros. martial arts films, Hideo Nakata, Park Chan-wook, Takashi Miike, Rhyuhei Kitamura, Beat Takeshi Kitano, Stephen Chow, Zhang Yimou, Lina Wertmuller, Robert Wise, Chang Chen, John Carpenter, Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Patrick Lussier, Guillermo del Toro, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Shane Black.

Television:

Dexter, Arrested Development, The (original) Office, The Sopranos, Deadwood, Entourage, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and sweet baby Jesus in the manger save me, Project Runway.

Books:

The works of: David Goodis, James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ross MacDonald, Peter Rabe, Gil Brewer, Cornell Woolrich, Charles Williams, Jim Thompson, Fredric Brown, Harry Whittington, James Ellroy, Edward Bunker, Derek Raymond, Harry Crews, Charles Bukwoski, Jack Cady, Kurt Vonnegut, Chuck Palahniuk, Charles Willeford, Donald Barthelme, Richard Brautigan, T.M. Wright, Ed Gorman, Bill Pronzini, Richard Laymon, Jack Ketchum, Dean Koontz, Norman Partridge, Richard Matheson, Joe Lansdale, David Morrell, Brian Keene, Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, Roger Zelazny, Alfred Bester, Spider Robinson, Robert Reed, Robert E. Howard, Tanith Lee, Karl Edward Wagner, Stanislaw Lem, Michael Bishop, Gary Braunbeck, Thomas Tessier, Edward Lee, Michael McDowell, Chester Himes, Day Keene, Bruno Fischer, Donald Westlake, Richard Stark, Ken Bruen, Duane Swierczynski, Allan Guthrie, Ray Banks, Peter Abrahams, Robert B. Parker, Walter Mosley, Graham Masterton, Joe Hill, Lee Child, Shirley Jackson, E.A. Poe.

Heroes:

Rod Serling, Edgar Allan Poe, Jack Cady, Harry Crews, Kurt Vonnegut, PKD, and everyone who's managed to walk into the fire and make it through with their soul intact.

My Blog

The Midnight Road wins ITW Award

Last night at the ThrillerCon banquet in New York City, my novel THE MIDNIGHT ROAD won an International Thriller Writers award in the Best Paperback Original category.  Thanks to everybody who's ...
Posted by Tom Piccirilli - Horror Suspense Author on Sun, 13 Jul 2008 01:39:00 PST

Shadow Season

I finished the first draft of my latest novel SHADOW SEASON this past weekend, almost four months to the day that I began writing it. And let me tell you, kids, this one very nearly whipped my ass. It...
Posted by Tom Piccirilli - Horror Suspense Author on Wed, 09 Jul 2008 11:55:00 PST

POD OF HORROR - Audio Interview

The new POD of HORROR is up now at World of Horror featuring audio interviews with me and Gary Braunbeck.  Mark Justice did an excellent job asking sharp questions.  I can't tell you ho...
Posted by Tom Piccirilli - Horror Suspense Author on Sat, 24 May 2008 02:59:00 PST

Forgotten Friday - THE HUNTER

Patti Abbott has asked me to join in on her new weekly event of asking crime writers to choose some overlooked novel and trying to bring a spotlight back onto it.  This week I've picked...
Posted by Tom Piccirilli - Horror Suspense Author on Fri, 16 May 2008 08:00:00 PST

New limited edition signed noir novella: ALL YOU DESPISE

ALL YOU DESPISE is a new signed limited edition noir novella of mine that's currently up for pre-order from the good folks at SHROUD Publishing. Limited to 500 copies, art by Alex McVey, intro by Bria...
Posted by Tom Piccirilli - Horror Suspense Author on Wed, 07 May 2008 12:52:00 PST

Get all warm & fuzzy with THE COLD SPOT

My novel THE COLD SPOT officially hits today (watch out for the elderly and small children during your stampede, folks), though it seems to have started sneaking onto shelves over the past week o...
Posted by Tom Piccirilli - Horror Suspense Author on Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:02:00 PST

Birth

Okay, so I'm forty-two years old and in a month I'll be forty-three. I'm not sure when middle-age officially starts nowadays, but I'm clearly there, right in the zone, and it's an odd feeling. Most of...
Posted by Tom Piccirilli - Horror Suspense Author on Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:02:00 PST

Reinvention

Just received the first couple copies of my latest novel THE COLD SPOT, hot off the presses. (It’s due out in less than three weeks, and in case you want to pre-order, just head here: THE COLD S...
Posted by Tom Piccirilli - Horror Suspense Author on Mon, 07 Apr 2008 11:35:00 PST

Update

"Then one day I started writing, not knowing that I had chained myself for life to a noble but merciless master. When God gives you a gift, he also hands you a whip, and the whip is intended solely fo...
Posted by Tom Piccirilli - Horror Suspense Author on Tue, 01 Apr 2008 02:38:00 PST

Pull

Usually when we talk about struggling to overcome limitations and meeting challenges head-on, we talk about pushing ourselves. But when it comes to writing, for me at least, it feels more like a pull....
Posted by Tom Piccirilli - Horror Suspense Author on Thu, 20 Mar 2008 10:59:00 PST