Evolution of Fear (36 page)

Deep thank-yous to everyone who has helped to bring this book to publication. My fantastic, gutsy publisher Karen, James West for his great editing, and everyone at Orenda Books (including the other fabulous Orenda authors). None of this of course happens without the support of my family, Heidi, Zac, Dec, Mum and Dad, Matt and Mark. Thanks also to my agent, Broo, and to Eve Seymour and Gary Pulsifer, and to all of the great passionate booksellers around the world who are willing to take a chance on new authors. And many thanks to you, the reader, above all.

Canadian by birth, Paul Hardisty has spent 25 years working all over the world as an engineer, hydrologist and environmental scientist. He has roughnecked on oil rigs in Texas, explored for gold in the Arctic, mapped geology in Eastern Turkey (where he was befriended by PKK rebels), and rehabilitated water wells in the wilds of Africa. He was in Ethiopia in 1991 as the Mengistu regime fell, and was bumped from one of the last flights out of Addis Ababa by bureaucrats and their families fleeing the rebels. In 1993 he survived a bomb blast in a café in Sana’a, and was one of the last Westerners out of Yemen before the outbreak of the 1994 civil war. Paul is a university professor and Director of Australia’s national land, water, ecosystems and climate adaptation research programmes. His debut novel,
The Abrupt Physics of Dying
, received great critical acclaim and was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger. Paul is a sailor, a private pilot, keen outdoorsman, conservation volunteer, and lives in Western Australia with his family.