I want to say right now, this wasn’t my plan when I wrote the first line of The Gouge.  The Gouge was meant to be a stand-alone story, and that is all.  I’m not a big fan of books in a series, mostly because it seems like a gimmick to sell the next book.  Okay, it’s cool, but it really wasn’t what I was aiming for.  When sat down to write The Blue Hole, (again it was meant to also be a stand-alone story) I decided to do something just for fun—I decided to make a character from The Gouge, Detective Jason Burns, make what was supposed to be just a cameo appearance in The Blue Hole.  I chose to do this for two reasons:  One, because I needed a detective for the story in The Blue Hole, and two, I lazily didn’t feel like creating a backstory for a new detective.  Afterall, the work had already been done with Burns’ character and his backstory fit the bill close enough for what I wanted.  Along the course of writing and finishing The Blue Hole, the book...