The Lesser Dead

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks, as always, to my ever-charming agent, Michelle Brower, and to my stalwart editor, Tom Colgan, for their unwavering support in this and previous endeavors. A writer is nothing without readers, and the first to read this manuscript helped it tremendously: Jennifer Schlitt, Naomi Kashinsky, Kelly Cochrane Davis, Chris Holcom, Noelle Burk, Ciara Carinci, Cyrus Rua, and Allison Williams, I am grateful. My old friend Jeff Schiemann deserves a nod for his support, as does Sejal Mehta for an entertaining travel story that made me think more creatively about the troubled relationship between vampires and insects. Thanks also to the MTA’s helpful and personable Carey Stumm, who rewarded my trip to Brooklyn with boxes of archived subway photos and some very practical observations about navigating the tunnels on foot (which, for most of us, is neither legal nor recommended). If you will indulge me a moment more, I would like to name a few of the booksellers who have been especially kind over the last two and a half years: Joe at Austin’s BookPeople, Dan and Stacie at Milwaukee’s Boswell Book Company, John and McKenna at Houston’s Murder by the Book, Ted at Garden District Book Shop in New Orleans, and Bill at the River’s End Bookstore in Oswego, New York, have all made me feel welcome in their stores and have kept my novels running across their shelves. Finally, I want to thank Judy Lagerman at Penguin Group (USA) for the magnificently ghoulish cover design that graces The Lesser Dead’s first edition. Brava!