The Key (45 page)

Second books, I have now discovered, are also like throwing parties. Only this time you are labouring in the shadow of the last one you threw, constantly hoping that the same people who came to that one will also come to this and not leave early. In preparing this one I have to particularly thank my incomparable agent at LAW, Alice Saunders, who is agenty in all the right ways and non-agenty in all the rest, as well as Mark Lucas and Peta Nightingale for that well-timed lunch at Ping Pong. I also owe a huge debt to everyone at ILA who, quite literally, spread my words to the rest of the world – as well as George Lucas at Inkwell Management who keeps the fires blazing in America.

At HarperCollins I am very lucky to have two smart and lovely editors in my corner in the shape of Julia Wisdom in the UK and David Highfill in the US, as well as a genius team of editorial staff, designers, marketers and sales folk who put the right looking book in the right people’s hands.

I also want to thank all the international publishers who bought Sanctus, many of whom I have met and all of whom I want to meet so I can buy them a drink and grin at them like a drunken fool.

Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank my inspirational children, Roxy, Stan (and Beanie, who’s in the post) and my wife Kathryn for all the love and support, without which none of this would be possible and everything would be pointless anyway.

About the Author

In 2007 Simon Toyne quit his job and moved to France to fulfil a long-held desire to write a thriller. After a sleepless night crossing the Channel, he and his family abandoned a planned eight-hour drive to their new home and limped instead to the city of Rouen. It was the sight of the sharp spire of Rouen Cathedral piercing the pre-dawn sky that gave birth to the fictional Citadel of
Sanctus
.

Sanctus
became an immediate bestseller. To date it has been translated into 27 languages and published in 40 countries.
The Key
is Simon's second novel.

Also by Simon Toyne

Sanctus

Copyright

HarperCollins
Publishers

77–85 Fulham Palace Road,

Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Published by HarperCollins
Publishers
2012

Simon Toyne asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

EPub Edition © April 2012 ISBN: 978 0 00 746088 5

Map © John Gilkes 2011

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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