Acknowledgments
During my younger and more abrasive days as a lawyer, I once wrote that an opponent’s legal brief was “a parade of sentences vainly in search of an idea.” I’m afraid that the same might be said of my stories without the help of the literary drum majors listed here.
I’ll start with Lee Hough, who is both agent and friend, and who always gives great advice at the concept development stage. Thanks also to Michael Garnier, Mary Hartman, and my wife, Rhonda, who helped work on this story even before Tyndale did the heavy editing. I wouldn’t even try to do this without you. On this book, I tapped the expertise of Andrew Hall, one of Georgia’s finest criminal defense lawyers, who helped this Virginia attorney fill in the cavernous gaps in his understanding of Georgia criminal procedure. All of that is before the editing magicians at Tyndale take over.
Thank you, Karen Watson, for asking the tough and probing questions at the concept stage. (Have you ever considered law school?) As always, your insights (and encouragement) were invaluable. Thanks to Jeremy Taylor for bringing the story into sharper focus and the characters into another dimension. And thanks to Stephanie Broene, the third member of the Tyndale triumvirate, who provided reams of encouragement with just the right touch of constructive critique.
But that’s not all. Sometimes, a book is inspired by real events, by people who are larger than life. That’s the case here. And I need to thank them too.
Poison. The suspicious death of a spouse. The loss of a father. The pursuit of justice. These are the themes of The Last Plea Bargain. They did not come from thin air.
I am indebted to Ginger Somerville-Grant, Sara Somerville, and Alita Miller for allowing me to represent them in their nine-year quest to avenge their father’s death. Your fight for justice inspired many of the themes I tried to capture in these pages. Thanks for never giving up. Sometimes, the good guys win.
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
ROMANS 12:21