ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Ruth Cavin, Julie Sullivan, and everyone at St. Martin’s Press for making my first time so much fun, and thanks to Luci Zahray for discovering me. This book was immeasurably improved by the critiques of those who read it as a work-in-progress: Adele Hutchinson; my father, John Fleming; Karen Fletcher; Les Smith; and Anne Steele Zembala. I had expert help from the clergy of the Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Portland, Maine, and from Timothy J. LaMar, formerly of the U.S. Army Infantry, who took me shooting and explained what it sounds like when you bash in someone’s head with a rock. Thanks to my mother, Lois Fleming, my first and best writing instructor, editor, critic, and fan. Finally, thanks to my husband, Ross Hugo-Vidal, who went through everything but a plague of locusts during the writing of this book and lived to tell the tale.