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Acknowledgments

I would like to extend my thanks to the following people who provided everything from professional expertise and practical help to friendship and encouragement: Pamela Ackerknecht, Catherine Aird, Alfred Alcorn, Tony Alcorn, Cindy Atoji, Peter Alden, Father Joseph Bagetta and the DYS crocheting group, Jean and Jim Behnke, Dana Bisbee, Paula Blanchard, Henri Bourneuf, Gerry Boyle, Margaret Byer, Mark Chapman, Rochelle Cohen, Neil Cote, Guy Darst, Nancy Day, Renée DeKona, Dick Donahue, Paul Doiron, Jane Gelfman, Dr. Herbert Gross, Bonni Hamilton, Jeremiah Healy, Barbara Herbert, Janice Herbert, P.D. James, Sande Kent, Linda Kincaid, Cara Nissman Kraft, Jeffrey Levine, Tom Libby, Reuben Mahar, Kevin McNamara, Janet Mendelsohn, Jenny Miller, Susan and Steve Moody, Elaine M. Ober, Diana O’Neill, Richard Olken, Eliza Partington, Juliet Partington, Mike Pingree, Arthur Pollock, Jeanne and Darrell Ray, John M. (Tim) Reilly, Chris Rippen, Eileen Tomaney Robinson, Tenley Rooney, Daisy and Jeremy Ruggiero, Todd Sawyer, Stephanie Schorow, Michael Seamans, John Sgammato, Al Silverstein, Clara Silverstein, Peter Skagestad, Barbara Sloane, Curtis C. Smith, JP Smith, Katy Snow, Richard Stomberg, Brian Sylvester, Sonya Turek, Cathy Weider, Karin Womer, Wayne Woodlief, and Bill Wyman. I also would like to remember the following people who always believed in me: my father, Robert D. Herbert; my grandparents, Mary and Harry Fransen; my creative writing teacher, Alfred E. Haulenbeek; and to these masters of mystery—Tony Hillerman, John Mortimer, Robert B. Parker, and Julian Symons.

With special thanks to Mary Higgins Clark, for her encouragement,

and for consenting to be a character in my mystery.

And with profound appreciation to Dick Sloane,

for his generosity and belief in me as a writer,

and to his mother, the late Vera Sloane, simply for being herself.