by Blair Peggy
I am also grateful to my good friends cardiologist Dr. Mark Perrin, pathologist Dr. Greg Flynn, and Dr. Ralph Hollands (the real one), for making sure I got the medical issues and treatments in this book right.
Shortly after I finished writing The Beggar’s Opera, which involved the drugging, rape, and murder of a Havana street child, I learned that three Italian tourists had been jailed in Cuba for an identical crime. Then, long after I’d submitted the manuscript for The Poisoned Pawn to Penguin, I discovered that the Pope’s butler had been arrested for leaking information about alleged corruption and money-laundering in the Vatican. And just as the book was about to go to editing, the media reported that two Quebec sisters had died of what appeared at first to be food poisoning at a tourist resort in Thailand.
Talk about life imitating art! Unfortunately, this prescience hasn’t translated into any particular success with the stock market, but it has convinced me that Ramirez and Apiro are out there in some parallel universe, enjoying a glass of rum and each other’s company. I’m grateful for their generosity in letting me eavesdrop on their discussions from time to time.
A final thanks, of course, to Adrienne and all the wonderful folks at Penguin, and to Alex Schultz, my brilliant copyeditor and friend.