The Cleaner (45 page)

Revisiting the novel to create this longer and improved edition for the U.S. market has been a lot of fun. Which brings me to Sarah Branham, my editor and friend at Atria who has done nothing but amazing things to the books over the last few years—and who will do amazing things to future ones too. Judith Curr, Lisa Keim, Mellony Torres, Emily Bestler, Janice Fryer, and the rest of the Atria team—thank you so much for bringing this book to another part of the world.

And of course no acknowledgment can be complete without mentioning Jane Gregory—the world’s greatest agent—Linden Sherriff and Claire Morris, who work with the world’s greatest agent, and Stephanie Glencross, Jane’s in-house editor who, if I had to sum up in one word, I would go with . . . well, it can’t be done in one. So I’ll go with two words—super brilliant. Though she would find some really clever way of editing that down.

I also just want to wander back down the time line a bit here. Harriet Allan, my first publisher here in New Zealand at Random House, read this manuscript way back in 2005 and saw it had a future. Nerrilee Weir, the rights manager
at Random House Australia, got the book into the hands of foreign publishers. Germany was the first. Germany is where
The Cleaner
became a bestseller, and that’s really where the ball started rolling. And for that I can thank two of the coolest people in the world—Markus and Kirsten Naegele.

Before I go, I would again like to thank you, the reader. Thank you for the kind emails, for coming to say hi at book festivals, for saying nice things on Facebook. Bad things may happen in the books, but it’s your kind words that encourage me to continue making those bad things happen. See you next time!

Paul Cleave, Christchurch, September 2012

ALSO BY PAUL CLEAVE

The Laughterhouse

Collecting Cooper

Blood Men

Cemetery Lake

The Killing Hour

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2006 by Paul Cleave

Originally published in New Zealand by Random House in 2006.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Atria Paperback edition December 2012

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cleave, Paul, date.

The cleaner : a thriller / by Paul Cleave. — 1st Atria Books trade paperback ed.

p. cm.

1. Serial murders—Fiction. 2. Christchurch (N.Z.)—Fiction. I. Title.

PR9639.4.C54C57 2012

823'.92—dc23

2012030312

ISBN 978-1-4516-7779-9

ISBN 978-1-4516-7780-5 (eBook)