Night Heron (33 page)

My profound thanks go to my agent, Catherine Clarke at Felicity Bryan Associates, who nurtured
Night Heron
almost from its inception with great patience and generosity. I am also grateful to Karen Godfrey, whose insights improved the manuscript greatly. The team at Little, Brown, including editors Ed Wood, Iain Hunt, and Tim Holman, made it something special. I count myself very lucky to work with them. For crucial encouragement given along the way, thank you to Chris Booth, Simon Wilson, Jon Whitney, Kim Ghattas, Paul Forty, Amanda Brookes, Sally Brookes, Richard Lawrence, and the much loved and missed Melissa Spielman. Professor Philip H. J. Davies of Brunel University provided important guidance, as did his extraordinary book,
MI6 and the Machinery of Spying
. I received help and advice from a number of people who can’t be named here, one in particular in whose company I remember passing a long, dank night in a certain Texas car park. My thanks go to all of them. I owe most to my wife Susan, whose love and wisdom carry me along, and to my best advisers, Anna and Ned.

Adam Brookes grew up in Oxfordshire and studied Chinese at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He has spent most of his career as a foreign correspondent for the British Broadcasting Corporation. The BBC posted him to China twice, as well as to Indonesia and the United States. He has also reported from Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea and many other countries in Asia and the Middle East. He lives with his family in Takoma Park, Maryland.

Night Heron

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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Copyright © 2014 by Adam Brookes

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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First ebook edition: May 2014

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ISBN 978-0-316-39985-2

E3