Red Leech

Dedicated to the three teachers who taught me how to write over the years — Sylvia Clark, Eve Wilson and Iris Cannon — and also to the four writers whose work has acted as living tutorials for me — Stephen Gallagher, Tim Powers, Jonathan Carroll and David Morrell.

And with grateful acknowledgements to:

Marc and Cat Dimmock, for encouraging me; Stella White, Michele Fry, Scott Fraser, A. Kinson, Chris Chalk, Susan Belcher, L. M. Cowan, L. Hay, Stuart Bentley, Mandy Nolan, D. J. Mann and all the other people who wrote reviews of the first Young Sherlock book for Amazon at exactly the time I needed to feel better about writing, and Dominic Kingston and Joanne Owen at Macmillan for looking after me in such a great way. Thanks, everyone.