The Secret Place

Acknowledgements

I owe enormous thank-yous to more people every time: Ciara Considine at Hachette Books Ireland, Sue Fletcher and Nick Sayers at Hodder & Stoughton, and Clare Ferraro and Caitlin O’Shaughnessy at Viking, for the time and skill they put into making this book so much better; Breda Purdue, Ruth Shern, Ciara Doorley and everyone at Hachette Books Ireland; Swati Gamble, Kerry Hood and everyone at Hodder & Stoughton; Ben Petrone, Carolyn Coleburn, Angie Messina and everyone at Viking; Susanne Halbleib and everyone at Fischer Verlage; Rachel Burd, for another eagle-eyed copy edit; the amazing Darley Anderson and his crack squad at the agency, especially Clare, Mary, Rosanna, Andrea and Jill; Steve Fisher of APA; David Walsh, for not only answering all my questions on detective procedure but giving me the answers to questions I didn’t know I needed to ask; Dr Fearghas Ó Cochláin, as usual, for helping me kill off the victim as plausibly as possible; Oonagh ‘Better Than’ Montague, for (among many, many other things) making me laugh at all the moments when I needed it most; Ann-Marie Hardiman, Catherine Farrell, Kendra Harpster, Jessica Ryan, Karen Gillece, Jessica Bramham, Kristina Johansen, Alex French and Susan Collins, for various wonderful combinations of seriousness, silliness and every kind of support; David Ryan, for being so very and so incomparably that without his endless I would never have; my mother, Elena Lombardi, for every single day; my father, David French; and, more than I’ll ever be able to put into words, my husband, Anthony Breatnach.