The man raised his glass in a toast, and murmured the same words he’d spoken into the ears of his four victims, “For Lynni,” he said with tears in his eyes, and swallowed the vodka.
After a few minutes, Nils Dahlin got up and left the bar. Out on the deck he walked to the railing, not feeling the freezing wind. For a long moment, he stood looking across the Baltic’s black water toward a distant shore visible only to him.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people’s kindnesses and efforts have come together to make this book a reality. My sincere gratitude and thanks are owed: To my friend, Howard Owen, for taking time from his own prize-winning fiction, to read the manuscript, suggest changes, and recommend it to his publishers; to Martin and Judith Shepard, copublishers of The Permanent Press, who enthusiastically endorsed this second novel of a late career effort and improved it with their thoughtful suggestions; to Chris Knopf, their associate publisher, for his perceptive comments; to Barbara Anderson, the most understanding of copy editors, for gently pointing out where improvements were needed; to Lon Kirschner, for his striking cover that conveys with graphic immediacy the sense of isolation and abandonment experienced by the victims of human trafficking; to all the others at The Permanent Press, and its literary agents, who have worked diligently to bring the book before the public; with affection, to my sister, Barbara, and my daughter, Alicia, who read the book in early drafts and offered many helpful insights; and lastly, to my wife, Suzanne, to whom this book is dedicated, for her loving patience as I scribbled away.
Finally, my thanks to you kind reader, for traveling with Walther Ekman on his troubled quest in Sweden and Morocco.
Erik Mauritzson
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