Death Ex Machina (38 page)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THANKS OVERWHELMINGLY TO my family. My daughters, Megan and Catriona, were five and eight when I started writing these books. Now they’re thirteen and sixteen. They’ve grown up with Nico and Diotima. (And they know far more ancient history than your average teenager.)

My wife, Helen, is not only my first and best reader, but also your first line of defense against my errors. These books are as much hers as mine.

You’re reading this book because the lovely people at Soho Press made it. It’s incredibly hard to name names without doing injustice to some poor soul, but I want to thank my editor and Soho’s Associate Publisher Juliet Grames; Director of Marketing and beer guru Paul Oliver; publicist Abby Koski who does a terrific job; managing editor Rachel Kowal; art director Janine Agro; Meredith Barnes, who read the manuscript when she was working for my agent, and then read it again when she was working for my publisher; and Bronwen Hruska for leading such a great company.

Janet Reid is the world’s best literary agent. I suspected as much when I signed with her as a new writer, eight years ago, and now I know it for sure.