ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I had a great deal
of help in bringing this project to publication. First of all, I
want to thank Billy Hamlin for his invaluable teaching and Lou
Aronica for brilliant editing. Dan Troy, Mark McClellan, and Scott
Gottlieb were generous in answering many questions about the FDA’s
inner workings. I also took merciless advantage of my friends Bill
Botts, Jan McDonnell, Maury Dewald, Gwen Feder, Elena Neuman, my
mother Suzanne, and my wife Marcia by making them read multiple
versions. Other friends have had their names appropriated as
characters here and there. Others were unwittingly pulled into the
story as themselves, simply to add verisimilitude to the plot. Tess
Gerritsen and Michael Palmer were kind enough to teach me what a
McGuffin is. From Sterling & Ross I want to thank Rachel
Trusheim, Anna Lacson, Nicola Lengua, Jessica Gardner, Wenny Chu,
Heidi Ward, and Mimi Lin. Most importantly, I want to thank Drew
Nederpelt, publisher at Sterling & Ross, for believing in this
project and making it his company’s first novel.