Last Call

Acknowledgments

After a one-book vacation from the Swyteck series with Lying with Strangers, I'm grateful to the team of all-stars who helped me get back into the groove of Jack and Theo: my editor, Carolyn Marino; her assistant, Wendy Lee; and my agent, Richard Pine. I also want to thank my early readers, Dr. Gloria M. Grippando, Eleanor Raynor, and Gloria Villa.

Beth Johnson was the lucky winner of a charity auction that helped me name one of my characters in Last Call I hope she always wanted to be a prison warden. If not, I hope she's at least glad that I didn't lend her name to an inmate. Either way, her generous donation goes to a great cause, the Ransom Everglades School in Miami, Florida.

As always, my biggest thank-you goes to Tiffany. She helps me in too many ways to enumerate, but I want to take this opportunity to assure her that I will never give her a roach brooch, and to assure each and every one of you (especially her friends) that Tiffany had absolutely nothing – zero, nada – to do with my research into a Prince Albert.

Finally, I want to thank the many, many pet lovers who wrote to me over the past year. In the acknowledgments to my last Jack Swyteck novel, When Darkness Falls , I mentioned the passing of Sam, my beloved golden retriever. Last Call was the first novel in a decade that I had to write without Sam at my side. Your stories about beloved pets were a huge comfort on the lonely days. For those of you who had trouble finding the story about Sam on my website, go to www. jamesgrippando.com and click on the menu button that says "Other Writings." But don't forget your Kleenex.