Tigerman

Acknowledgments

Driving in an implausibly enormous Toyota Hilux out of Chiang Mai, my nephews Chris and Dan and I were talking nonsense to one another. I have no idea what we were saying, but between one breath and the next this book was born. Thanks, guys.

Clare is always my first reader and my first editor. She denies having a particular talent in this direction. She is wrong about that, though about remarkably little else.

Clemency and Tom are just magic.

Patrick is wise, and into his orbit at Conville & Walsh are drawn other wise people, which is how the world ought to work.

Jason Arthur and Edward Kastenmeier continue to rein in my worser impulses – like using “worser” in a modern novel – and are calm and accepting when I stick to my idiosyncracies. Like Patrick, they have superb people around them.

A small team of test readers got early sight of this book, and they performed wonderfully: they said they liked it, and then very gently they pointed out where it was broken. You know who you are. Thank you.

And to everyone who patiently waited while I ran around looking for a pen or dictated a note to my iPhone during a meeting or stared abstractedly into space and then shouted “tomatoes”… This is what it was all about.