The Gate House   ::   Demille Nelson

Many thanks to Daniel Barbiero, a great friendand a great sailor, who read the sections of the book pertaining to sailing, the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club, and related subjects. It was fun doing the research at the Seawanhaka bar, the Rex bar in Saigon, and all the other bars over the last half century.

Thanks, too, to John E. Hammond, historian and author of Oyster Bay Remembered (Maple Hill Press), for sharing with me his amazing knowledge of Long Island’s Gold Coast. Once again, I need to say I exercised my novelist’s right of literary license, and any errors or omissions of historical fact are mine alone.

This book truly would not have been possible without the hard work, dedication, and professional craftsmanship of my excellent and very patient assistants, Dianne Francis and Patricia Chichester. I’m going to let them write my next book.

Very special thanks to Jamie Raab, publisher of Grand Central Publishing, editor of Nelson DeMille, and a great friend. Jamie was the biggest fan of The Gate House long before I wrote the first word, and she’s been there every step of the way. So in many ways, I share the authorship of this book (but not the royalties) with Jamie.

It’s always a good idea to thank the CEO, even if you don’t mean it, but in this case, my thanks are most sincere to my friend David Young, chairman and CEO of Hachette Book Group. David, like Jamie, believed in a sequel to The Gold Coast even when I had doubts – doubts that were dispelled with judicious quantities of single malt Scotch whisky. Cheers, David.

I’d also like to thank my mother-in-law and father-in-law, Joan and Bob Dillingham, for some insightful tips on Episcopalians as well as funerals, weddings, and related church matters; any resemblance in this book to fact is purely coincidental.

And, I have saved the best for last. Every author needs a spouse or a significant other to help prevent the common affliction of writers known as Swollen Head Syndrome, and I have been fortunate to have found such a person: my bride of less than two years, Sandra Dillingham DeMille. Sandy, in addition to editing some of my most annoying traits, is a very good manuscript editor, and also my source of information on the more subtle points of the world of the WASP. For all of this, and for giving me James Nelson DeMille, I thank you, and I love you.

T he following people have made generous contributions to charities in return for having their names used for some of the characters in this novel: Diane and Barry Ganz, A. J.