Acknowledgments

It takes a lot of people to write a novel. This one would not have existed without the assistance of my very good friends and first readers (on and off the Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror)—especially but not exclusively Kathryn Allen, Rhonda Garcia, Jaime Voss, Chris Coen, Ilona Gordon, Jean Seok, Derek R. Molata, Tara Devine, Chelsea Polk, Caliann Graves, James Stevens-Arce, Michael Curry, and Larry West. I am even more deeply indebted to Stella Evans, M.D., to whom I owe whatever bits of the medical science and neurology are accurate; to M.Cpl. S. K. S. Perry (Canadian Forces) and Capt. Beth Coughlin (U.S. Army), without whom my portrayal of military life would have been even more wildly fantastical; to Leah Bobet, my native guide to Toronto; to Thomas Ladegard, whose firsthand experience in the sewers of Hartford proved invaluable; to Stephen Shipman for handgun tips; to Asha C. Shipman for listening to me curse (and type) late into the night; to my copyeditor, Faren Bachelis; to the North Las Vegas Police Department’s Lt. Ed Finizie and Officer Marion Brady for giving me some idea what it means to be a big-city cop; to Dena Landon, Sarah Monette, and Kelly Morisseau, francophones extraordinaire, upon whom may be blamed any correctness in the Québecois—especially the naughty bits; to Jennifer Jackson and Anne Groell for too many reasons to enumerate; and most especially to my husband, Chris, for staying married to me not only through the third novel (blamed for many a divorce), but through the fourth, fifth, and sixth ones, too.

The failures, of course, are my own, with one exception: Jenny’s completely wrong about the squirrels.