This book started as a short story based on a writing challenge. The challenge was to have your character wake up in a padded room and not know how they got there. The challenge was issued around the same time as the headlines were debating the treatment of American enemy combatants. Not the prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. but American citizens who were designated enemy combatants. I wondered what would happen if an innocent man was accused? I've always been a fan of the reluctant hero and time travel fiction, and while this isn't exactly time travel, there is a fantastical element to the story. The short story morphed into a novel because readers of the story wanted to know what happened to the character. The padded room has been replaced by a cell and the character knows how he got there, but he's still confused as to exactly why and how he can explain.