Acknowledgments

Once again, I could not have written this novel without an enormous amount of help. First of all, there were the pilots who shared with me what their lives are like on the ground and in the air: John Weber, Carol Lynn Wood, and Judy Bradt (who is a shaman as well as a pilot, a rare combination indeed). In addition, I am grateful to J. J. Gertler, a thorough and uncompromising reader, and a font of all sorts of esoteric information about aircraft. And then there was William Langewiesche, one of the world’s great aviation experts and a wonderful writer, who examined the scenes in this novel that involve flying (and crashing) and gently pointed out my particularly egregious errors.

And when it comes to crashing—or, at least, ditching—an aircraft, I am not sure that there are many people who know as much about surviving that sort of disaster as Maria Hanna and Richard Martin at Survival Systems USA in Groton, Connecticut. May I never need to use all I learned that day in the dunk tank, when the simulator was turning me upside down on the flight deck and I had to find my way to the surface of the water.

I learned an enormous amount as well from the shamans: Mary Alexander, Anthony Patrick Pauly, Jr., and Hilary Raimo.

And then there were the doctors, psychiatrists, and EMTs: Dr. Mike Kiernan, Dr. Richard Munson, Dr. Marc Tischler, and James Yeaton.

The books that were my Emergency Information Cards while writing this novel included Medicine Woman by Lynn V. Andrews; The Unquiet Dead by Edith Fiore; Fly by Wire: The Geese, the Glide, the Miracle on the Hudson, by William Langewiesche; and Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters, by Chesley Sullenberger and Jeffrey Zaslow.

And, of course, I am deeply indebted to the whole team at Random House and at Gelfman Schneider. First at Crown: Domenica Alioto, Shaye Areheart, Andy Augusto, Patty Berg, Cindy Berman, Sarah Breivogel, Jacob Bronstein, Whitney Cookman, Jill Flaxman, John Glusman, Kate Kennedy, Christine Kopprasch, Jacqui LeBow, Matthew Martin, Maya Mavjee, Donna Passannante, Philip Patrick, Tina Pohlman, Catherine Pollock, Annsley Rosner, Jay Sones, Molly Stern, Kira Walton, and Campbell Wharton. At Gelfman Schneider: Jane Gelfman, Cathy Gleason, and Victoria Marini. And no list would be complete without Arlynn Greenbaum at Authors Unlimited and Dean Schramm of the Schramm Group.

Finally, there is my lovely bride of a quarter of a century, who reads all my work in more drafts than anyone should have to endure, Victoria Blewer.

I thank you all so very, very much.