This is my third novel and I’m still pinching myself. So the first thank you goes to Transworld Publishers for continuing to believe in me. I am so grateful.
I would like to thank my brilliant agent, Becky Ritchie, for her support and enthusiasm, and my fantastic editor, Tash Barsby, who has done an amazing job with a complicated plot structure – the next one will be simpler, I promise! Thank you to Tash’s colleagues for reading and picking up on things I missed, and to Hannah Bright for the hard work she’s put into publicizing my books. To Vivien Thompson and the eagle-eyed proofreading team. To the staff at Richmond Waterstones, you have been amazing from the start. Thanks also to Monica Byles for her advice on my chapter plan, to Bella Bosworth, my first reader, and to Oliver Day, whose graphic descriptions of the hypnagogic hallucinations that he’s suffered from since childhood inspired me to write this book. Thanks to the memory of Biff, the extraordinary little rescue dog who Toffee is drawn from; to the PrimeWriters – we go from strength to strength – and the newly inaugurated Psychological Suspense Authors’ Association. Thank you to Dead Good Books and to the book bloggers, reviewers and my friends on Twitter for your continued goodwill. To Steve, Max and Lulu and all my friends and family, I couldn’t do this without you. And last but not least, thank you for those chance conversations that spark ideas. They do say, be careful what you tell an author.