I dedicated this novel to my agent, Clare Wallace, but really every novel should be. No author could manage much of anything without their agent, but only she knows why this novel specifically warranted a dedication. To the fantastic rights team at Darley Anderson too, who continue to sprinkle my inbox with translation joy, and to Camilla Bolton who read and gave notes which assisted me so much.
It’s hard to believe that here I am, writing my fourth acknowledgements section, three bestsellers under my belt, when in many ways I still feel like the bewildered drunk-on-luck woman I was the day I got my publishing deal. It is very charmed, this life I lead, and I owe that to Maxine Hitchcock, Tilda McDonald, and the whole team at Michael Joseph. So many people go into making a book successful. Sarah Kennedy, Shân Morley Jones, and the tour de force that is the Michael Joseph sales team: I’ll forever be indebted to them all.
As ever, I bothered a number of experts over email this past year. Dr Alison Malkin who very cleverly and carefully helped my diabetes and drugs plot. Imran Mahmood who is always on hand to help me with legal queries. Officer Jimmy (who would rather not be named) who met with me for an afternoon in a pub and talked me through typical days in prison while I made frantic notes. And Officer Peter Green, who let me come and give a talk at HMP Spring Hill in exchange for a tour of the open prison. That afternoon vaulted my book from a work-in-progress to a novel with a heart and soul and I will forever remember standing there in the spring sunlight with my father (of course) as I realized that this novel is really about institutionalization and the catastrophic effect of being accused of a crime. Special thanks go, too, to ex-cop Alice Vinten, who plugged away with me at my covert ops plot, trying and trying and trying to avoid the cliché of ‘the police missed this piece of evidence and got the wrong man’. I think we managed it, and it’s all down to her. Narbi Price, an artist whose guidance (and advice to go out and buy linseed and turps was right on) and descriptions gave Gabe colour and realism. To DB and to Marigold for the house buying anecdote. And to Dave Matthias for the religion help.
To my close and small circle of author friends, Holly Seddon, G. X. Todd, Claire Douglas and Lia Louis. I’d be lost without the four of you. To Sara Pietrafesa for regularly bringing me back from the brink, and to Joanna Houghton for the text anecdote (where Izzy and Nick met), and to Alice Reid who won a competition I ran on my Facebook page to have a character named after her in this novel.
I can’t begin to do justice to the help my father gives me in planning, writing and editing my novels. As my hobby has morphed into my job, he’s gone from amateur to professional with me. Our plotting sessions are more formal now: we’ve gained whiteboards and timelines but there’s still tea and laughter. Some things don’t change. He’s so good at it that my author friends wish to hire him to discuss their plots with …
And finally, as ever, I must acknowledge (though he would never expect such) the stoic man in my life: David. My books are imbued with love because you marinate me in it every day. Every interesting character I write has elements of you. You are all I know, and all I ever want to know, forever.