My friend Sam Wiebe guided me gently through the process of writing my first crime novel, and I’m deeply grateful for that, and to Naben Ruthnum for putting us in touch; I’d also like to thank CBC’s Sheryl MacKay for having asked me an interview question about “guilty pleasure reading” that helped me get the ball rolling on this attempt at joining the genre squad. Thank you to Tejpal Singh Swatch, Alexandra Zabjek, Rob Simmons, Ryan Knighton, Stephen Hui, and Paul Bae for notes, thoughts, and encouragements.
I am deeply honoured, and a little heartbroken, that the manuscript for this book was the last one edited by Susan Safyan in her position as in-house editor at Arsenal Pulp Press; she is smart, funny, sharp-eyed, and makes everybody’s books better. Thank you, Susan.
Thanks also to the entire team at Arsenal: Brian, Robert, Oliver, Cynara, and Shirarose; thank you to Zoe Grams of ZG Communications; many thanks as well to my literary agent, John Pearce, at Westwood Creative.
Love and gratitude as always to my family, including my brother and father and their partners; and to my aunts, uncles, and cousins. To my daughter Joséphine, and to my wife Cara—who is doing the hard work of organizing structured, electoral civic resistance to the profit-driven gutting of our beloved city—I can only reiterate how happy I am to get to share this space with you.
My uncle, Phil Birnie—who built the second half of his life in Coquitlam, and who was one of the very smartest and very funniest people I ever knew—died in the summer of 2017, while I was still writing this book, and he didn’t get to read much of it. Regardless, it’s for him.
PHOTO CREDIT: JOSHUA BERSON
CHARLES DEMERS is a comedian and playwright, and the author of several books, including The Horrors, The Dad Dialogues (with George Bowering), and Vancouver Special, a finalist for the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize. He has appeared multiple times at the prestigious Just For Laughs festival, is a regular on CBC’s The Debaters, and is the voice of Walter the Slug on the Emmy-winning Netflix cartoon Beat Bugs. A longtime political activist, Charles lives in East Vancouver with his wife and daughter.
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