Holloway Falls (33 page)

Acknowledgements

To anybody interested in the frontiers of New Age folly, I recommend Damian Thompson’s
The End of Time
.
From this fine and funny book I borrowed much of Rex Dryden’s theology as it appears in Chapter 5. If it stinks, that’s probably because it originated with Paco Rabanne.

Like the end of the world,
Holloway Falls
was a long time coming. Happily, many hands helped to make light work of it.

Not only did David Godwin’s commitment and enthusiasm never flag, his willingness to re-read slightly different versions of the early manuscript exceeded the limits of human endurance. For this I will never be able to thank him properly, or indeed apologise. I’m similarly indebted to Tim Binding. He determined to get the best out of me, whether I liked it or not and, annoyingly, he was never wrong—not even about me thanking him for it, in the end.

To those I’ve worked with (so far) at Scribner—Rochelle Venables, Joanna Ellis, Alex Heminsley, Neal Price and James Kellow—thank you for making a new boy feel so quickly at home, and for caring about this book.

To Jeremy Palmer: thanks for the years of close reading, large bar bills and the free exchange of ideas, most of them stupid. And to Jon Parker, who knows all the right words to all the right songs, not to mention a thing or two about books.

But the greatest debt by far is owed to my wife, Nadya Kooznetzoff. Her patience never strained and her nerve didn’t crack—not even when I gave superabundant cause for both. Anyone who knows her will tell you she was always out of my league. And they’d be right. She still is.

Holloway Falls
is from both of us, with love, to our sons Ethan and Finn.

About the Author

Neil Cross (b. 1969) is a British novelist and screenwriter best known as the creator of the multiaward-winning international hit BBC crime series
Luther
, starring Idris Elba, and the international hit horror movie
Mama
. His highly acclaimed memoir,
Heartland
, was shortlisted for the PEN/Ackerley Prize in 2006. Cross has also written several thrillers, including
Captured
,
Holloway Falls
, and
Always the Sun
, which was longlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize. Cross continues to write for TV and film in the United Kingdom and the United States. He lives with his wife and two sons in Wellington, New Zealand.