The third book in the Bibliophile Mystery series, 2010

My thanks and acknowledgment go to book conservator Jeff Peachey for generously granting permission to use his name and his bookbinding tools in my books.

Many thanks, as well, to the wonderful San Francisco Center for the Book, where book geeks like me are welcomed and encouraged by the generous staff and talented teachers. Any resemblance between SFCB and my own fictional BABA is entirely coincidental. I’m also indebted once again to book artist Wendy Poma for her help and inspiration.

I am grateful to my plot group, Susan Mallery, Maureen Child, Christine Rimmer, and Teresa Southwick, for their friendship, advice, and support. Great thanks, also, to my literary agent, Christina Hogrebe of the Jane Rotrosen Agency, for her guidance and enthusiasm, and to Executive Editor Ellen Edwards, for her encouragement and consummate skill with words.

Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to the librarians and booksellers around the country who continue to spread the word that Brooklyn and bookbinders are hot stuff, indeed. Thanks to you all.

Layla Fontaine, Executive Artistic Director of the Bay Area Book Arts Center, was tall, blond, and strikingly beautiful, with a hair-trigger temper and a reputation for ruthlessness. Some in the book community called her a malevolent shark. Others disagreed, insisting that calling her a shark only served to tarnish the reputation of decent sharks everywhere.