Special thanks to:
First and foremost, my readers. Your continued and loyal support allows me to do what I love.
My friends Sharon Car, Marlene Haney, Sandy Rockwood, and Patricia Sierra, who keep me grounded and sane and have done so since the beginning of this wonderful crazy journey.
Author Patricia Bremmer and her husband, Martin, for being my eyes and ears on the western front. I’m so glad you didn’t get arrested while settting up mock crime scenes in the middle of the Nebraska National Forest.
Dan Frodsham, Rec Tech, and Bob Fetters, Forest Rangers at the Nebraska National Forest, for providing maps and answers. I only hope I did our incredible forest justice, and please forgive my creative license in moving and changing things around.
Melissa Connor, Associate Professor and Forensic Science Program Director at Nebraska Wesleyan University, along with her students: Jeff Rathman, Kimberly Van Den Akker, Nikki Brophy, Amanda Ruzicka, Leron West, and Kody Connelly. They took an entire afternoon out of their busy schedules to help film a video at NWU’s Crime Scene House for my website. And Melissa, thanks also for giving me some ideas on how to process a crime scene outdoors as well as some insight into the Nebraska coroner system. Our conversations are always so morbidly enlightening.
Gary Plank, Assistant Professor at Nebraska Wesleyan University and retired criminal investigator and behavior profiler for the Nebraska State Patrol Investigative Services Division, for answering my questions about the State Patrol and crime scene jurisdictions.
Annie Belatti, whose vast experiences as a trauma nurse and nurse anesthetist provided invaluable information about electrocution and what it might be like to get wrapped up in barbed wire.
Leigh Ann Retelsdorf, Nebraska District Court Judge and retired Douglas County prosecutor, who usually helps me murder my victims, this time was able to access her incredible resume that includes biologist. Thanks for sharing some interesting tidbits about the Nebraska National Forest’s diverse wildlife.
The real Mary Ellen Wychulis for her generous donation to the National MS Society and for allowing me to concoct a fictional character in her name. The real Mary Ellen has never, to my knowledge, worked for the USDA, and any resemblance would be a matter of coincidence.
My amazing team at Doubleday, headed by my editor, Phyllis Grann. Special thanks also to Judy Jacoby for your endless attention to detail and caring for each book as if it were your only one.
Also the crew at Little, Brown UK: Catherine Burke and David Shelley.
Ray Kunze, again, for lending his name to Maggie’s new boss. Ray had no idea what he was getting into when he asked to be in a novel. And again for the record, the real Ray Kunze is a gentleman and all-around great guy who would never send Maggie to the Nebraska Sandhills to investigate cattle mutilations.
The booksellers, book buyers, librarians, reviewers, and bloggers across the country for mentioning and recommending my novels.
My apologies to the residents of the Nebraska Sandhills and North Platte for my taking some liberty with geography and places such as the Great Plains Regional Medical Center, which, to my knowledge, does not include near as many floors and stairwells as Maggie maneuvered down.
Last, thank you to the ranchers, farmers, and food producers of this nation, who not only do an amazing job of feeding us but of making sure our food is safe. After the spinach recall in 2006, growers and producers got together and developed a safer, more efficient and effective system to curtail future contaminations. They did this on their own and long before the federal government had finished its official investigation.
As I finished the edits to this novel in December 2010, Congress was passing a new food safety bill in response to the egg recall of August/September. Ironically, this massive overhaul of FDA regulations does not extend to the USDA, which oversees beef, poultry, and, yes, eggs.