High Crimes

The author Rodney Barker kindly provided entrée to the insular and highly specialized world of military law. Thanks to him I was able to assemble my own Dream Team of civilian attorneys specializing in courts-martial, including William J. Baker, Tom Folk, David Sheldon, and the estimable David L. Beck. Charles W. Gittins helped immensely in devising Claire’s legal strategy, at a time when he was working ’round the clock to defend the Sergeant Major of the Army. And I can’t say enough about the great Mike Powell, a civilian military attorney with the imagination of a novelist, who cheerfully served as my chief legal adviser and military consultant, and became a friend. If ever I were court-martialed, I’d hire him in an instant. The malevolent nature of Tom’s court-martial is purely my own invention and not based on anything I ever saw in real life. None of the military judges I met were at all like my Warren Farrell. (What’s possible, though, is another matter...) Any procedural or legal errors are mine, or maybe Claire’s.

At William Morrow I thank Paul Fedorko, Ann Treistman, and Fritz Metsch. I had a superb copy editor in Terry Zaroff-Evans. My wonderful and supremely able assistant, Kathy Economou, made my writing life a lot easier. My gratitude to my terrific literary agent and all-around consigliere, Molly Friedrich; her assistant, Paul Cirone; and Aaron Priest; and again I appreciate the enthusiasm of my foreign-rights agent, Danny Baror, and Richard Green and Howie Sanders of United Talent Agency. My parents, Morris and Natalie Finder, are outstanding unpaid freelance publicists and supporters. And of course my brother, Henry Finder, peerless editor/consultant, still sets aside time for me even as the demand on his time grows and the outside world gets wise to his talents. My wife, Michele Souda, not only helped give life to Claire but also recognized that in my fiction, men who cook are to be watched closely. She encouraged me from the start and continues to believe, and I’m grateful as always for her loving support.