by Tony Park
My friend Heidi Mueller, in South Africa, put me in touch with Audrey Delsink, an elephant researcher at Makalali Private Game Reserve who briefed me on ongoing trials of contraceptives for elephants, and also read the manuscript. In an amazing coincidence, Audrey’s parents lived on an island off the coast of Mozambique, but fled in 1975 when Audrey’s mother was pregnant with her. Truth, I find, is always more interesting than fiction. Thank you, Heidi and Audrey, for all your help.
As you may have gathered, lots of people gave me lots of help with this book, but any mistakes or stretches of credibility that remain are wholly and solely down to me in every case.
Between them, Mark and Lisa Novak, Petrice Judge, Kim Hoddy and young Jac le Roux donated a very significant amount of money to two charities – the SAVE Foundation, which concentrates on conserving rhinos in southern Africa, and Painted Dog Conservation Inc, which supports the endangered African Painted Dog – in order to have their names used in this book. I thank these generous people and I hope you all enjoyed your fictional alter-egos.
Thanks too to David Patrick, the marketing manager for Rovos Rail, and chief executive Rohan Voss for allowing Nicola and me on to your wonderful train, the Pride of Africa. The trip from Pretoria to Cape Town is truly an experience of a lifetime. Likewise, thank you to the kind and courteous staff at the D’oreale Grande Hotel, near O.R. Tambo International Airport, Johannesburg.
Forgive me, but the acknowledgements in my books get longer and longer each year as I make more and more friends in Africa. Thank you, once again, to Dennis and Liz and Don and Vicki who keep Nicola and me on the road each year through their support and friendship, and to our good friends Robert and Lesley Engels in Cape Town, and my unofficial editor and resident expert on all things and spellings African, Tracey Hawthorne.
Thanks to my wife Nicola, mum Kathy and mother-in-law Sheila for your unpaid and unflinching first edits. I love youse all.
Last, but never least, thank you once again to the people at Pan Macmillan who allow me to live the life I’ve always dreamed of: all the hard working sales team; the best publisher in the world, Deputy Publishing Director Cate Paterson; Publishing Director and excellent Mombasa tour guide James Fraser; outstanding fiction publicist Jane Novak; and my wonderful, helpful, smart editors, Sarina Rowell, Emma Rafferty and Julia Stiles.
And, if you’ve made it this far; thank you. You’re the one who counts the most.
