Acknowledgments

I hope you take the time to read this page because so many talented and hard-working people made this book possible, and I would like to thank and acknowledge their amazing work.

The idea for this book came from the editor of my last several books, Sian Roberts. Sian has moved on to a new role at SAS, and I am delighted to work with a new acquisitions and developmental editor, Lauree Shepard. She provided me with encouragement when needed and coordinated everything from technical reviews to copy editing and final assembly. There is truly more work in producing a book than just writing it.

One of my reviewers, Paul Grant, has reviewed almost every book I have written and he keeps coming back for more. Two other reviewers, Russ Tyndall and Charley Mullen, rounded out the team that reviewed the entire book. Thank you all so much. SAS also provided me with two experts, Kathryn McLawhorn and Leila McConnell, who reviewed sections of the book. Thank you both.

Vicki Leary had the difficult task of copy editing this second edition. It is the job of a copy editor to make it look like the author knows how to write. Before the book goes to press, I have read every chapter many, many times. But as hard as I try to catch every mistake or grammatical error, Vicki finds more.

Putting all the pieces (front matter, table of contents, the chapters themselves, and the index) together is quite a difficult and demanding job. Thanks so much to Denise Jones for producing the final product.

I have always felt that having an eye-popping and easily identifiable cover is really important and the artists at SAS are first rate, as you can see by this great cover created by Robert Harris.