Wish You Were Dead

Acknowledgements

Writing any book involves a huge amount of teamwork, including those who help me with my research, with editing, the cover design, the marketing, the social media and so much more, and I’ve been blessed over the years to have the support of so many talented people.

First and foremost a huge thank you to Jojo Moyes, for her foresight and immense generosity in keeping the Quick Reads programme alive. These novellas play such a vital role in encouraging so many people who are either reading books for the first time or who have struggled or had lost the reading habit. And a huge thanks to Fanny Blake, my brilliant former editor at Penguin Signet — a few years back (!) — for twisting my arm to do this book, which has been a blast.

Those research helpers I would particularly like to single out on this novella are: Julian Blazeby, Connor Costen, Sean Didcott, Claire Horne, Manon Jones and Dr Adrian Noon.

Thank you also to my brilliant Team James readers, Sue Ansell, Martin Diplock, Jane Diplock, Anna-Lisa Hancock, James Hodge and Helen Shenston. To my agent, Isobel Dixon, Sian Ellis-Martin and all at Blake Friedmann, and to my publishers, Pan Macmillan, with a special mention to those who worked on this novella, Wayne Brookes, Samantha Fletcher, Alex Saunders, Lindsay Nash and Neil Lang. Huge thanks also to my publicists at Riot, Preena Gadher, Caitlin Allen and Emily Souders.

The inspiration for this story came from a hotel in central France that Lara and I stayed a night in a couple of years ago. The hotel was very much as I have described, incredibly creepy and old-fashioned, almost deserted and distinctly sinister — we really did think at one point we were going to end up murdered...

As ever, with this novella I’ve been helped enormously by my wife, Lara, both in recalling the details of the hotel and how we felt, and with all other aspects of the story. My good friend David Gaylor helped so much with both the front-line editing and the police aspects of the book, as well as cracking the whip to keep me to schedule!

Thanks also to our fabulous new PA, Kate Blazeby; to our hardworking and always smiling finance manager, Sarah Middle; to Dani Brown, who does a terrific job running our social media; to Amy Robinson for her work with the team; and to her son Kit Robinson, the perfect model for Noah! And huge thanks to Chris Webb and Chris Diplock who keep our computers and all our tech going, and to Martin Walsh and Erin Brown who curate our video content.

And, as ever, a big thank you to our pets, who do so much to keep us sane: our dogs, Oscar, Spooky and Wally; our Burmese cats, Woo and Willy; our ducks, Mickey Magic, Clarissa, Locky, Maija, Bob, Barbara, Happy-Go-Ducky, Green Bean and a dozen more; our pygmy goats, Bouscaut, Margaux, Ted and Norman; our emus, Wolfie and Spike; and our alpacas, Alpacino, Fortescue, Jean-Luc, Boris and Keith. In a world that sometimes seems a little crazy and scary, none of these beautiful creatures has a care beyond ensuring they get their food and their treats: bones, carrots, blueberries, grapes, popcorn, ginger biscuits, sweetcorn and peas. Would that life should be so simple for us all!

My final word is to thank all of you, my readers. I always love to hear from you — your letters, emails, blog posts, tweets, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube comments are wonderful to receive.