Acknowledgments
In the writing of this book special thanks are due to California Deputy Attorney General Ward Campbell for his help and assistance relating to the law of international extradition; to George Williamson, Chief Deputy Attorney General for the State of California, Criminal Division; and to Deputy Attorney General Scott Thorp for their assistance in providing color and authenticity to the veiled processes of the grand jury in rural counties.
A special word of thanks is owed to the California Attorney General’s Criminalistics Institute and its manager, Victor C. Reeve, for valuable assistance in the technical waters of forensic science.
To Jim Bissell, Q.C., Director of the Vancouver Regional Office, Canadian Department of Justice, and Mr. John M. Loo, Crown Attorney of that Office, I am indebted for their assistance and guidance in the nuances of the Canadian extradition process.
To Mark Berg, of Auburn, California, the consummate criminal trial lawyer, I owe unending gratitude for his encouragement and counsel on all things legal.
And I am grateful to all those writers and lawyers who during the course of my writing have provided kind words of encouragement or advice, including F. Lee Bailey, Edward J. Bellen, Melvin Belli, Dale Brown, Vincent Bugliosi, Dominick Dunne, Richard Herman, Jr., Clifford Irving, Edward Stewart and William Wood.
In particular I would like to thank author and lawyer John Grisham, whose kindness in public print and whose words of encouragement reveal a generous spirit unaffected by the winds of fame.
I wish to thank my publisher, Phyllis Grann, for her constant support and endless encouragement; my editor, George Coleman, for his guidance in the telling of this story; and my agent, John Hawkins, for his boundless wisdom and good counsel.
And finally but not least of all, my thanks to Leah, who has spent innumerable hours listening to my readings and rantings and who has stood by me with encouragement and interest through long years of struggle. To her and to Meggie I owe the deepest debt of all.
To all of these and others whom, by oversight, I may have omitted to mention, I owe grateful thanks for their advice and insights that have allowed me to craft a work of seeming truth. For any failings that a reader may find in this regard, I am solely responsible.