Thank you to friends and colleagues who read and chatted through my early drafts – particularly Alex Hill, Jayne Travis, Mike Williams and Steph Venema. Extra special thanks to James Smythe, Kim Curran and Nina Allan for their invaluable suggestions and encouragement.
Big thanks to my agent, Sam Copeland, whose belief, insight and flowery shirts I always appreciate. We got there eventually...
The Angry Robot team is ace. Thanks to Marc Gascoigne, Mike Underwood and Caroline Lambe for their care and hard work both sides of the Atlantic. Huge thanks to Phil Jourdan, my bionic-eyed editor, who honestly understands this novel more than I do, and to Penny Reeve, cybernetic publicity manager extraordinaire. I also want to thank Paul Simpson, the book’s copyeditor, and Trish Byrne and Claire Rushbrook, its proofreaders. And, of course, thank you to John Coulthart for the book’s magnificent cover art.
Loads of love to my family, who support me even though they probably read this stuff and wonder where they went wrong. And lastly, love and endless gratitude to Suzanne, who smiles and endures and holds me together. Our son Albert was born just a few days before I wrote these acknowledgments – so here’s a little one for him, too: you'll likely be in your teens when you see this. Behave yourself.