The Candidate (31 page)

Dear Reader,

I acknowledge and thank you for bringing Erica Sparks and her adventures into your life. I love Erica's strength of character and fortitude. Stay safe, Erica.

Thank you to all my friends at Fox, who continue to encourage and support my love of writing a good mystery. Thank you O'Reilly, from Wiehl. And Roger Ailes, for hiring a certain legal analyst and bringing me in to the world of cable news at the highest level. Thank you, too, to Dianne Brandi. And continued thanks to bestselling thriller author, Steve Berry. It is an honor to be your friend. You gave me the tools to combine the worlds of cable news and mystery in this novel. For invaluable editorial advice and insight, thank you Stephen McCauley.

I love this publishing team! They “got” the idea of putting Erica right in the midst of the 2016 presidential campaign. Something is amiss. Erica is on the hunt. Her life is in danger. And off we go. As “real world” events unfolded during the writing of this work of fiction, I was amazed by how many things struck me as coincidentally similar. This team “got” it and ran with it. Daisy Hutton, Amanda
Bostic, LB Norton, Becky Monds, Becky Philpott, Jodi Hughes, Karli Jackson, Kristen Ingebretson, Samantha Buck, Kristen Golden, and Paul Fisher.

Special thanks to Todd Shuster, my book agent and friend for many years.
The Candidate
would simply not have happened without your guidance.

Thank you Sebastian, my collaborator and friend. I love your energy and spirit. Onward!

And always, thank you Mom and Dad. You are always my role models for following my moral compass.

All the mistakes are mine. All the credit is theirs. Thank you!

Lis

PHOTO BY KYLE WIDDER PHOTOGRAPHY

LIS WIEHL IS A
NEW York Times
bestselling author, Harvard Law School graduate, and former federal prosecutor. A popular legal analyst and commentator for the Fox News Channel, Wiehl appears weekly on
The O'Reilly Factor
,
Lou Dobbs Tonight
,
Imus in the Morning
,
Kelly's Court
, and more.