Nelson Demille - Radiant Angel

And, now on to my publishing team. Many thanks go to my editor and friend, Jamie Raab, president and publisher of Grand Central Publishing. Jamie somehow finds time to run a company and edit my manuscripts, and she wears both hats with style and confidence.

Thanks also to my longtime friend Harvey-Jane Kowal, a.k.a. HJ, who has once again come out of retirement from Hachette Book Group to work on this, her thirteenth DeMille book. This comes under the category of “Glutton for Punishment.” HJ knows her grammar, punctuation, spelling, and fact-checking, and she makes me look good on the printed page.

Forgetting to thank your agent at the back of the book is like forgetting to thank your defense lawyer as you walk out of the courtroom a free man. Imperfect analogy aside, I want to thank my team at ICM Partners, Jennifer Joel and Sloan Harris, not only for their hard work, but also for their smart work. Authors with good agents suffer fewer suicidal and homicidal urges.

This book was made possible by my two dedicated and hardworking assistants, Dianne Francis and Patricia Chichester. I write all my novels by hand, and there are only two people on the planet who can read my scrawl and put it into typed form, and for that I am very grateful. Dianne and Patricia are also my first readers and fact-checkers, and nothing goes to the publisher that is not perfect. Thanks, too, for keeping my schedule and my life organized.

Another early reader of the manuscript is my son, Alex, who as a screenwriter gets straight to the heart of the storyline and the characters. Screenwriters tell a story with an economy of words and they reveal their characters through dialogue, and I have learned much from Alex, making me feel good about the Yale tuition. Thanks, Buddy.

For a different perspective on the manuscript I always turn to my daughter, Lauren, a psychologist. Dr. Lauren is able to analyze my characters, and through them she can analyze the author and offer help for all of us.

And, penultimately, I want to thank the beautiful Ethel Kennedy, who is truly a radiant angel on earth. Ethel inspires me to be charitable and it’s starting to work.

The best is last, and that is my wife, Sandy, who is an example to me and to all who know her of courage and optimism. Perfect wife, perfect mother, and perfectly beautiful, inside and out.

The following people have made generous contributions to charities in return for having their name used as a character in this novel: Nikola Andersson— East End Hospice; Scott Kalish— Boys & Girls Club of Oyster Bay — East Norwich; Howard Fensterman— Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation; Dean Hampton— Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights.

I hope they all enjoy their fictitious alter egos and that they continue their good work for worthy causes.