Deliver Us From Evil

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

TO MICHELLE, who makes all our lives work.

To Mitch Hoffman, editor extraordinaire.

To David Young, Jamie Raab, Emi Battaglia, Je

To Aaron and Arleen Priest, Lucy Childs, Lisa Erbach Vance, Nicole Kenealy, Frances Jalet-Miller, and John Richmond, for helping me every step of the way.

To Roland Ottewell, for your keen eye.

To Maria Rejt and Katie James at Pan Macmillan, for their well-timed support from across the pond.

To Grace McQuade and Ly

To Bob Schule, for world-class consultant services.

To Lynette, Deborah, and Natasha, for being a great team.

DAVID BALDACCI ON WRITING

Deleted Scenes:

Sometimes an ending is absolutely spot-on the first time you write it, and sometimes it isn’t. I usually have two or three endings in mind as I wend my way toward finishing a novel. In rare instances I’ve gone back and changed the ending I wrote originally. This happened in Last Man Standing and First Family, to name two examples. It usually involves characters living or dying. In Deliver Us from Evil, it happened again. The ending was written, and I was reviewing it. I had given it to my i

Edited Manuscript:

The editing process has multiple layers. And although typos sometimes still poke through (as readers are quick to remind me), the process is a time-tested one. The pages you’re looking at now contain my handwritten changes to them. The first section is rather early on in the writing process. As you will be able to see, the edits are both substantive and cosmetic. At this point I’m still working my way through the story, getting to know my characters. The second set of edits are set forth on what is known as page proofs. This is the last chance I will have to edit the manuscript unless some crazy error has slipped through. Or I throw a tantrum, which I never have. But I could, because you never know. After this it goes to the printer, the cover is slapped on, and the finished product is shipped to book outlets all over the country. You can tell these are page proofs because the words are typeset as opposed to printed pages off a computer. Some of the changes you see here are of the cosmetic variety, namely typos, changes in verb tense, or minor grammatical fixes. But I did include a substantive change necessitated by an issue in timing and action in a contained space. As you read through the edits you should be able to see why I made the changes I did. Or you might think, why did he do that? I liked the way it was just fine. Well, sometimes you just can’t win. But I’m showing my writing soul here so bare with me.

Outlines:

I do both typewritten and handwritten outlines. Outlines change all the time, and some days I write off the cuff, pure seat-of-the-pants, inspired pixie dust, whatever you want to call it. But outlines are useful for marshaling ideas, organizing story flow and, like airlines and air traffic controllers do every day, getting equipment (characters) where they need to be to carry it all off safely and professionally. The pages you’re looking at here detail my ideas in formulating the plot, character elements, twists, action flow, locale descriptions, and the like. When used properly outlines are invaluable. When used badly-for example, the novel simply being a bare bones outline with too many action scenes and plot contrivances to fill in the huge holes in the story-it can be disastrous. I also do quite a bit of research for my novels, and all that information is neatly organized in huge binders that I assemble for every novel. This may include personal interviews, photos, book and online research and first-hand descriptions I take when visiting a location. But the rule for me with research is that you must leave most of it out. I don’t write textbooks, I write fiction. And if the research gets in the way of the story flow I haven’t done my job.

DAVID BALDACCI ON DELIVER US FROM EVIL

How can you make beautiful Provence deadly? Place a thriller smack in the heart of it. I pride myself on research and I try to go to as many of the places that I write about in my books as I can. Last summer I traveled to Gordes in Provence. It was so beautiful and so mysterious that I wanted to write a story set there, at least in part. There was the history, the mystery, the closeness of the players in the drama. It has an Alfred Hitchcock movie feel to it, like To Catch a Thief.

Shaw, my mysterious one-name international agent, is in his element in this novel, which takes readers from Provence to London, Washington, and the Canadian frontier. He is up against a villain quite unlike any I’ve ever created before. Evan Waller is certainly evil but he is also clever, driven, smart and a survivor with a fascinating personal history. It will take everything Shaw and his new sidekick, Reggie Campion, can bring to the battle to defeat him.

The justice-driven group that Reggie works for is based at an old musty estate in the English countryside. They are characters that I will definitely explore again in future novels. I love this group and what they do. It brings together all the elements I love in fiction: history, action, fascinating locations, dramatic relationships, high stakes and the goal of vanquishing evil. What could be better?

In this enriched e-Book version of the novel you will be able to see photos that I took of real places during my trip to Provence and that I later incorporated into the novel. They’re a

Also, as in a director’s cut DVD, I will try to bring you behind the scenes, so to speak. You will be able to see hand-edited pages, which will allow you to follow my thought processes and choices I made as I edited the actual manuscript. And there are also outline pages so you can see how I created the plot. In addition, I’ve provided you with a different ending that I discarded after many pleas from my agent, editor and, most important, my wife!

I hope you like the new enriched e-Book. This is new territory for authors and book publishers. We want to improve the experience going forward so any comments you have will be appreciated. Please email me at [email protected] /* */ Grand Central Publishing at [email protected] /* */ any feedback you might have on this new experience. We plan to do with this with future books, and we may go back to some of my earlier books and build in similar enhancements. I hope you enjoy the novel. Now on with the show!

Happy Reading,

David Baldacci