Acknowledgements

The Shadows of Men marks the fifth outing for Sam and Suren and comes five years after the first publication of A Rising Man. Back then I had no idea that so many people would take those two to their hearts and in the process change my life. So it’s only right that I acknowledge the debt of gratitude I owe to each and every one of you who’ve read and enjoyed the series. Thank you for your time and your support.

Thank you too, to all the booksellers and bloggers and reviewers who’ve recommended the series to readers. In the midst of so much despair over the last eighteen months, good fiction has been a source of comfort, and we writers are honoured by your dedication and love for books.

I’m indebted once more to the team at Harvill Secker/Vintage: to my editor, Jade Chandler and to Dredheza Maloku; to Anna Redman Aylward, Bethan Jones and Isobel Turton for all the wonderful publicity they garner; to Sophie Painter and Helia Daryani for the online marketing; to Jane Kirby, Lucy Beresford-Knox and the team, who take the books to the wider world; to Liz Foley, Hannah Telfer, Rachel Cugnoni, Faye Brewster, Tom Drake-Lee and the wider team at Vintage for all their support and for signing off on my advances.

A special mention too, for Richard Cable. Thank you, sir, for backing me as a writer and for all your support over the years. We need to have that drink soon.

Thank you also to Alexa Murray, Alishia Strydom and all the team at PrimePixels who have pulled me, Sam and Suren, kicking and screaming, into the age of social media.

This list would not be complete without mention of Honor Spreckley and the whole team at Rogers, Coleridge and White who do such a great job of carrying my agent, Sam Copeland, and making him look good.

Thanks of course, to those good friends who let me borrow their names without worrying too much about what I’d do to them: to Farid Gulmohamed, my friend and mentor for over twenty years; to the wonderful Ooravis Panthaki-Colah, and the charming Jehangir Panthaki. I expect you all to pull strings and sell many millions of copies in India. And thank you to my old pal, Mark MacRae. Maybe we’ll get to see you in the flesh in another book?

Thanks too to the Red Hot Chilli Writers, Vaseem Khan, Ayisha Malik, Alex Caan, AA Dhand and Imran Mahmood: thanks for the support and all the bakwaas. Ladoos all round.

And finally of course, thank you to my wife, Sonal, without whom the world wouldn’t make sense. Fourteen hundred years now, but who’s counting?