The Codex

Acknowledgments

There is one person above all others who must be thanked for the existence of this novel, and that is my good friend the inestimable Forrest Fenn — collector, scholar, and publisher. I will never forget that lunch of ours, many years ago in the Dragon Room of the Pink Adobe, when you told me a curious story — and thereby gave me the idea for this novel. I hope you feel I have done the idea justice.

Having mentioned Forrest, I feel it necessary to make one thing clear: My character Maxwell Broadbent is a complete and total fictional creation. In terms of personality, ethics, character, and family values, the two men could not be more different, a fact I wish to emphasize for anyone who fancies he sees a roman à clef in this novel.

Many years ago a young editor received a half-finished manuscript called Relic from a pair of unknown writers; he bought the manuscript and mailed the writers a modest editorial letter, outlining how he thought the novel should be rewritten and finished — a letter that propelled those two authors on the road to bestsellerdom and a number-one box-office hit movie. That editor was Bob Gleason. I owe a great debt to him for those early days and for guiding this novel to completion. In a similar vein I would like to thank Tom Doherty for welcoming back a prodigal son.

I wish to acknowledge here the incomparable Mr. Lincoln Child, truly the better half of our belletristic partnership, for his excellent and most insightful criticism of the manuscript.

I owe a great debt of gratitude to Bobby Rotenberg, not only for his insightful and detailed help with the characters and story, but also for his great and enduring friendship.

I would like to acknowledge my agents Eric Simonoff at Janklow & Nesbit in New York and Matthew Snyder in Hollywood. I want to thank Marc Rosen for helping me develop some of the ideas in this novel and Lynda Obst for her vision in seeing its possibilities in a seven-page treatment.

I owe a great debt to Jon Couch, who read the manuscript and made many helpful suggestions, particularly in regard to weaponry and firearms. Niccolò Capponi offered some of his usual brilliant ideas regarding several tricky scenes in the book. I am also indebted to Steve Elkins, who is searching for the real White City in Honduras.

Several books were useful to me while writing The Codex, in particular Redmond O’Hanlon’s In Trouble Again and Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer by Rosita Arvigo — an excellent book that I would recommend to anyone interested in the subject of Mayan medicine.

My daughter Selene read the manuscript several times and offered top-notch criticism, for which I am immensely grateful. And I wish to thank my wife, Christine, and my other children, Aletheia and Isaac. I thank all of you for your constant love, kindness, and support, without which this book, and everything else wonderful in my life, wouldn’t exist.