Acknowledgements
This book could not have been written without the generosity and patience of Tom Hyland, a veteran of the Vietnam war and a good man, who answered many questions over the course of its completion, and who improved the manuscript immeasurably with his knowledge.
I am grateful too to the contributors to Truckingboards, the truckers’ forum, who took the time to explain the nature of their work between the US and Canada.
I consulted a great many newspapers and journals in the course of writing The Whisperers, in particular the committed, sensitive reporting of The New York Times on the issues of PTSD and the treatment of returning veterans. Meanwhile, the following books proved invaluable in filling in the gaps in my knowledge: My War: Killing Time in Iraq by Colby Buzzell (Putnam, 2005), from which much of the detail of serving in a Stryker squad originated; Trigger Men by Hans Halberstadt (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2008); In Conflict: Iraq War Veterans Speak Out on Duty, Loss, and the Fight to Stay Alive by Yvonne Latty (Polipoint Press, 2006); War and the Soul by Edward Tick, Ph.D (Quest Books, 2005); Blood Brothers by Michael Weisskopf (Henry Holt and Company, 2006); The Forever War by Dexter Filkins (Vintage Books, 2008); The Secret Life of War by Peter Beaumont (Harvill Secker, 2009); Sumerian Mythology by Samuel Noah Kramer (Forgotten Books, 2007); Ancient Iraq by George Roux (Penguin, 1964); Thieves of Baghdad by Matthew Bogdanos (Bloomsbury, 2005); The Looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad edited by Milbry Polk and Angela M.H. Schuster (Abrams, 2005); and Catastrophe! The Looting and Destruction of Iraq’s Past edited by Geoff Emberling & Kathryn Hanson (The Oriental Institute Museum of the University of Chicago, 2008).
Many books have been written about the experience of war, but few authors have written as beautifully, and as incisively, as Richard Currey, who served as a combat medic during the Vietnam War. Fatal Light, his classic novel of Vietnam, was re-issued in 2009 as a special twentieth anniversary edition by Santa Fé Writers Project, and Crossing Over: The Vietnam Stories, from which this book quotes, has been in print for three decades. Further details are available from www.richardcurrey.com.
My thanks, as always, to my editor at Hodder & Stoughton, Sue Fletcher, and my editor at Atria Books, Emily Bestler, as well as to all those who at Hodder, Atria, and elsewhere who help to get my odd books into the hands of readers; to my agent, Darley Anderson, and his staff; to Madeira James and Jayne Doherty; to Clair Lamb; to Megan Beatie; and to Kate and KC O’Hearn.
Finally, love and thanks to Jennie, Cameron, and Alistair.
Oh, and Sasha.
About the Author
John Connolly was born in Dublin in 1968. His debut – EVERY DEAD THING – swiftly launched him right into the front rank of thriller writers, and all his subsequent novels have been Sunday Times bestsellers. He is the first non-American writer to win the US Shamus award. To find out more about his novels, visit John’s website at www.johnconnollybooks.com.