Funny thing was, Alison was meant to go to London with me, and damned if I can remember if it was her idea to take that flight home or mine.
Author’s Note
This book is a work of fiction. Wendell Black is a fictional character, as are all others in the story. Great liberties have been taken in portraying the hierarchy and members of the NYPD. Neither the procedures nor the behavior of the characters are meant to represent actual events. This is simply a story, while New York’s finest remain just that—the finest police force in the land.
Police surgeons are well-trained professionals who perform critical work and are integral to the functioning of a police force 34,500 strong. Details and locations of their work have been frequently altered to serve the story.
While the functioning of security agencies, in this era of terrorism, has been fictionalized, every effort has been made to present the science accurately. Any errors are mine, and mine alone.
Thanks are due to many who have helped this project along. Binky Urban, agent extraordinaire, has been in my corner for every project, and is always available with good advice, well-considered criticism, and practical help. Claire Wachtel, at HarperCollins, encouraged me from the start, and added editorial magic to nurture whatever is good about this book. Thank you. I would also like to thank associate editor Hannah Wood for her invaluable help in the preparation of the manuscript.
Beyond the writing, it has been a tradition to thank a diverse band of close friends who bounce ideas around and offer no real help or support. Jerry Della Femina, Michael Kramer, Andrew Bergman, and Jeff Greenfield, thanks for being there on Wednesdays. Joel Siegel, thanks for getting us together. We miss you.
My wife, the designer, entrepreneur, and filmmaker Cathryn Collins, has endured the ups and downs, the expletives, and the deadlines, all in fairly good humor. Thank you. And to the early-stage readers and listeners, my sons, Peter, Jason, and Gregory, thank you.
About the Author
GERALD IMBER, MD, is a plastic surgeon. He directs a private clinic in Manhattan, is on the staff of New York–Presbyterian Hospital, and is an assistant clinical professor of surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Imber is the author of The Youth Corridor and several other beauty books, as well as Genius on the Edge, the biography of pioneering surgeon W. S. Halsted.
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Copyright
Cover design by Jarrod Taylor
Cover photograph © Hans-Guenther Oed / Alamy
WENDELL BLACK, MD. Copyright © 2014 by Gerald Imber. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-224685-1
EPUB Edition FEBRUARY 2014 ISBN 9780062246868
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