Acknowledgements

The first person I’d like to offer my thanks to is John Russell. Much gratitude comes to you for allowing me to bounce so many ideas at you over Oscar’s dog walks, and for coming up with some alternative twists and turns of your own. For a man who rarely reads a book, your ideas and suggestions were amazing! Thank you also for your patience while I hid myself away in our office as you kept me fed and watered.

Thanks to my mum, Pamela Marrs, for being my most loyal supporter and the inspiration for my love of books. And a huge thank you to Tracy Fenton, Queen of Facebook’s THE Book Club, for her advice and frequent abuse. To writers both experienced and new to the game, you’re a Godsend.

I’d like to offer a massive shout-out to members of the aforementioned and largest online group of like-minded readers.

There’s no other group out there like you and I’m grateful to every one of the thousands of you who have downloaded my novels to date.

Special thanks to the wonderful Governess of Grammar Kath Middleton and Randileigh Kennedy (fantastic authors themselves), Anne Lynes for your eagle eyes and the inimitable Samantha Clarke.

Also thanks to my early readers/self-titled groupies Alex Iveson, Susan Wallace, Janette Hail, geography expert Michelle Nicholls, Janice Leibowitz, Ruth Davey, Laura Pontin, Elaine Binder, Rebecca Burntin and Deborah Dobrin. And a special mention to my friends Rhian Molloy and Mandie Brown, both early-days readers.

Gratitude goes to my fellow writers Andrew Webber (your enthusiasm helped so much) and James Ryan. Thanks to Peter Sterk for his advice when it comes to DNA and genetics; Angela Holden Hunt; Chloe Cope Neppe for medical advice and use of Aussie slang; and Julie McGukian for her crime scene clean-up

suggestions – Christopher couldn’t have got away with murder without you.

Thanks to my friend Adam Smalley from thedesigngent.co.uk for the mock-up web pages that even I believed existed. I also found the website psychopathyawareness.wordpress.com very useful when examining Christopher’s psyche.

A whopper of a thank you goes to Emily Yau, my commissioning editor at Ebury. Of the hundreds of new books popping up online every day, you came across mine and took a punt on downloading it.

You have changed everything, and for that you’ll have my eternal gratitude.

Finally, my thanks go towards you, whoever you are, for taking the time to purchase this book. You’ll never know quite how much this means to a writer.