Peter James: Dead Like You

A special thank-you to Caroline Mayhew, and to the team at the St Patrick’s Night Shelter, in particular Emma Harrington, Theo Abbs and Amanda Lane.

And, as always, I owe an extremely special and massive thanks to the terrific team at the Brighton and Hove City Mortuary, Sean Didcott and Victor Sindon. And also to Dr Nigel Kirkham; forensic archaeologist Lucy Sibun; Dr Jonathan Pash; Coroner Dr Peter Dean; forensic pathologist Dr Benjamin Swift; Dr Ben Sharp; Marian Down.

Thank you to my terrific consultants on autism, Vicky Warren, who gave me so much of the inspiration for Yac; Gareth Ransome; Tony Balazs; and to wonderful Sue Stopa, manager of Hollyrood – the Disabilities Trust’s flagship autism-specific residential home – and its staff and residential clients.

Thanks also to Peter Wingate Saul; Juliet Smith, Chief Magistrate of Brighton and Hove; Paul Grzegorzek; Abigail Bradley and Matt Green-halgh, Director of Forensics at Orchid Cellmark Forensics; Tim Moore; Anne Busbridge, General Manager of the Brighton Hilton Metropole Hotel, Michael Knox-Johnston, General Manager of the Grand Hotel. And to Graham Lewis, my lock-up garage specialist! Special thanks to Josephine and Howard Belm, owners of the Tom Newbound houseboat. A very special thanks to Steve Dudman, owner of the Old Cement Works, whose kind offer to show me round sparked the idea for the location of the climax. Thanks also to Andy Lang, of Languard Alarms. And to Phil Mills. And also to Anne Martin, General Manager, and Peter Burgess, Chief Engineer, of Brighton Pier.

As ever, thank you to Chris Webb of MacService for keeping my Mac alive despite all the abuse I give it! Very big and special thanks to Anna-Lisa Lindeblad, who has again been my tireless and wonderful ‘unofficial’ editor and commentator throughout the Roy Grace series, and to Sue Ansell, whose sharp eye for detail has saved me many an embarrassment, and my wonderful PA, Linda Buckley.

Professionally I again have a total dream team: the tireless Carole Blake representing me; my awesome publicists, Tony Mulliken, Sophie Ransom and Claire Barnett of Midas PR; and there is simply not enough space to say a proper thank-you to everyone at Macmillan, but I must mention my brilliant former editor, Publishing Director Maria Rejt, my editor, Susan Opie, and copy-editor, Lesley Levene, and a massive welcome to my new editor, the wonderful Wayne Brookes.

As ever, Helen has been my rock, keeping me nourished with saintly patience and constant wisdom.

My canine friends continue to keep me sane. The ever-cheerful Coco has now joined Oscar and Phoebe under my desk, waiting to pounce on any discarded pages of manuscript that should fall to the floor and dutifully shred them.

Lastly, thank you, my readers, for all the incredible support you give me. Keep those emails, tweets and blog posts coming!

Peter James

Sussex, England

www.peterjames.com

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