The Silent Man

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

At the end of The Ghost War, I encouraged readers to e-mail me at alexberenson@gmail.com with comments, suggestions, and complaints. I had no idea I would get so many responses. More than five hundred of you wrote, and I learned some things that I should have known already — I can promise I will never again use the phrase “knots per hour”—as well as some things that I don’t think anyone who wasn’t a C-130 pilot could have known.

Best of all were the notes from soldiers, both active-duty and veteran, some of whom said they identified very much with Wells, for better and worse. Wells isn’t real, and yet his emotions are: his sense of duty, his loneliness, his anger at injustice in all its forms, his strength, his patience, his ability to keep his emotions under wraps for as long as necessary. He is a soldier as much as a spy, and I hope I have rendered him honorably.

I tried to reply to every e-mail, and I’m sorry if I missed anyone. Please keep the notes coming, and I will try to continue to respond individually to each one, though if the volume of e-mail continues to grow exponentially I may not be able to keep up. Let me know also if you’d like to see improvements to my Web site — I’m considering a forum for people to discuss the books and other spy novels, but if it won’t be used I won’t bother. (Few sights are sadder than a message board with three entries.)

Now, on to the actual acknowledgments (which haven’t changed much since The Ghost War, a sign of either stability or ossification).

Ellen and Harvey, my parents and closest readers.

David, my brother and best bud.

Neil Nyren, whose suggestions are always on point — and the rest of the folks at Putnam and Berkley, who somehow made The Faithful Spy a number-one bestseller in paperback.

Heather Schroder, who makes the deals that keep John Wells alive, and Matthew Snyder, who is still working to get Wells his close-up.

Tim Race, Larry Ingrassia, and the rest of the fine folks at The New York Times, who are far more patient than I have any right to expect.

And: Jonathan Karp, Douglas Ollivant, Deirdre Silver, Andrew Ross Sorkin, and Mark Tavani, all of whom have helped nurture John Wells along the way. Thanks to all of you.