Greg Iles - The Footprints of God

All my novels are enriched by the expertise and insight of many people. I owe them all an expression of thanks.

For his trip to Israel during difficult times: Keith Benoist.

For medical expertise: Salil Tiwari, M.D., Louis Jacobs, D.O., Michael Bourland, M.D., Jerry lies, M.D., Edward Daly, M.D., Fred Emrick, M.D., Simmons lies, R.N.

For military expertise: Major General Chuck Thomas, U.S. Army (retired). Chuck was of great help on very short notice, and he is not responsible for authorial invention as to military capabilities. Thanks also to Cole Cordray, and to S.B. for covert assistance.

For long nights discussing philosophy and religion: Robert Hensley, Michael Taylor, and Win Ward.

For contributions too numerous to name, the usual suspects: Geoff lies, Michael Henry, Ed Stackler. Courtney Aldridge, Jane Hargrove.

For sticking with it: Susan Moldow, Louise Burkt and Susanne Kirk.

Thanks also to the ladies at the Oak Ridge Chamber or Commerce.

As usual, all mistakes are mine.

Finally, to my readers. Writing about science and phi¬losophy in a commercial novel is problematic. Write about them at their natural level and you leave the masses behind. Simplify too much, and you offend peo¬ple conversant in those subjects. I trust you will enter this book as an exercise of the mind, and not judge too harshly either way. If we have learned anything in the past ten thousand years, it is that nothing is certain.

Greg Iles was born in Germany in 1960, where his father ran the US Embassy Medical Clinic during the height of the Cold War. He spent his youth in Natchez, Mississippi, and graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1983.

Greg founded the band "Frankly Scarlet" and spent several years playing music for a living. The year after he was married, he gigged on the road for 50 weeks out of 52, and realized that this lifestyle was simply not sustainable with a family. He quit the band and began working eighteen hours a day on his first novel, Spandau Phoenix , a thriller about Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess. When Greg sold this manuscript, he left the music business to complete the book.

Over the course of his next few books, Greg broke the formula adhered to by most commercial novelists and wrote in a variety of genres. Surprisingly, each found a place on the bestseller list, and today readers look forward to discovering what new subject Greg has explored in his latest novel.

Greg's novels have been translated into more than a dozen languages and published in more than twenty countries worldwide.

He currently lives in Natchez, Mississippi, the setting of many of his novels.