A Map of the Dark
Page 22
He catches them with his right hand and with his left wrests free another slice of pizza for the road. “Ready?”
“No,” she says, and leads him out the door.
Acknowledgments
Weeks before my mother died, she said something casually in conversation that sparked what became this novel. First and foremost, I have to thank her for giving me this one last thing. She was my first-ever writing teacher; in her fourth-grade classroom, I joined my fellow students at her direction in creating tiny illustrated books. That was the moment that I fell in love with storytelling and bookmaking. As I grew up and wrote novels that found a place in the broader world, she helped me however she could, reading drafts and offering comments and also stepping in whenever I needed help juggling my own children along with a budding career. But as with most mother-daughter relationships, layers of history and argument tended to jostle for attention. The confluence of her loss and the meandering path this novel took as it found its story and voice will remain, for me, a time of personal and sometimes painful growth. She left too quickly and we never finished our conversation. Had she read this novel, the conversation would inevitably have deepened.
Others to be thanked include my brilliant and patient literary agent Dan Conaway, along with his assistant Taylor Templeton, at Writers House, where drafts were read and discussed until the novel gained its footing. Emily Giglierano, the talented editor at Mulholland Books who opened her wings and took in this project, nudged me forward, always with grace, until together we found the story’s balance. Everyone at Mulholland Books and its parent, Little, Brown, have been wonderfully supportive, especially Josh Kendall, Reagan Arthur, Judy Clain, Sabrina Callahan, Pamela Brown, Nicky Guerreiro, Neil Heacox, Michael Noon, and Tracy Roe. And for bringing this to readers around the world, I’m lucky to have Maja Nikolic on my team at Writers House/London, where she put this novel into the hands of Ruth Tross at Hodder/Mulholland UK and back into the trusted hands of my longtime German editor Suenjie Redies at Rowohlt.
Many thanks to Supervisory Special Agent Scott Schelble of the FBI’s Child Abduction Rapid Deployment Teams Unit and Angela Bell in the FBI’s Office of Public Affairs, both of whom gave generously of their time in answering all my questions about how a missing-child investigation works.
My dear friend writer and editor Suellen Grealy read the novel in progress and was a great help with a trove of excellent suggestions and encouragement. And last but never least, the earliest and most steadfast reader of what must have seemed like endless drafts was, as always, my husband Oliver Lief, whose feedback was never less than incisive; somehow, over the years, he has found a way to give me both good news and bad news straightforwardly but with kindness.
About the Author
Karen Ellis is a pseudonym of longtime crime fiction author Katia Lief, who is a member of the International Thriller Writers, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and the Authors Guild. She lives in Brooklyn.
Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Hachette Digital.
To receive special offers, bonus content, and news about our latest ebooks and apps, sign up for our newsletters.
Sign Up
Or visit us at hachettebookgroup.com/newsletters