As a physician, I have always been intrigued with the definition of life and death, the various end-of-life scenarios and the boundaries that exist between them.  As an anesthesiologist, I feel I am even more intimately familiar with the fine line between life and death.  In fact, each time I put one of my patients to sleep, I purposely take them down to THE EDGE OF DEATH —for this is the very essence of anesthesia—and then bring them back.  So it’s no surprise really that several years ago while journal reading, one particular article jumped out at me.

The researchers, who were exploring cutting edge techniques in resuscitation medicine, noted that in patients who were newly declared dead, they could still demonstrate under the microscope, the presence of viable cells in various organs—sometimes even hours after death!  This was a staggering revelation to me, especially since it represented real science—not the realm of fiction.  So, I wondered what actually defines death?  Brain cell death?  Heart cell death? Liver or kidney cell death?  Hard to say.  But this begged the question—if the definition of death is so muddled, when does the soul know it’s time to flee the body?  What is the specific triggering mechanism?  Taking it one step further, what happens to the body if it is resuscitated, after the soul has left?

The Edge of Death flowed directly from those questions and represents a departure from straight medical thriller fiction into a dark supernatural or paranormal medical thriller, stretching the genre a bit.  Hopefully, this will not put off readers of conventional medical thrillers too much, but the story proved too powerful for me to ignore.  So, The Edge of Death was born—a supernatural thriller written from an authentic medical perspective—something new and unique.  Hopefully, readers will find it as compelling as I found it to write.