Perhaps the most extensive private collection devoted to cartography was in the unique library of England ’s Christopher Henry Beaumont Pease, the second Baron Wardington. The essay written by Lord Wardington for Sotheby’s 2006 sale of Important Atlases from his library captured the passion these treasures inspired, and the elegant descriptions in that catalog helped me design the volumes that line the bookshelves of my fictional characters.

My dear friends Cynthia and Dan Lufkin invited me to their spectacular apartment when they moved to a landmarked building on Central Park West several years ago. It’s still a mystery to me how elements of their stunning home took such a sinister turn in my imagination, but I am grateful for that introduction to the chapel over cocktails.

Dr. Cecilia Crouse, chief of the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office forensic science laboratory, is a woman I admire enormously. She solves crimes, saves lives, does justice every day, and trains scores of young scientists to do the same. Cece is a great force for good against evil in this world, and she remains my DNA guru.

Paul LeClerc, President of the New York Public Library, has the most splendid professional home in America. He has called libraries “the memory of humankind, irreplacable repositories of documents of human thought and action,” and I agree with him that the NYPL is such an institution, par excellence.

David Ferriero, Andrew W. Mellon Director of the New York Public Libraries, was my brilliant personal guide through all the amazing wonders of the great library. The NYPL was founded in 1895, he said, with the mission of making the accumulated knowledge of the world freely accessible to all, without distinction as to income, religion, nationality, or other human condition. David knew that I was likely to invent murder and mayhem within the historic walls of the central library as a result of the time he spent with me, but still he led me from the rooftop to the basement stacks and through every secret passageway in between, and put me in the hands of each scholarly curator and conservator along the way.