When Gideon had proposed Error, Gullibility, and Self-Deception in the Social Sciences, Lester had looked at him as if he were crazy. “You’re writing for the masses here,” he’d pointed out. “What do you say we dumb down the title a little?” But Lester’s idea (Bungles, Blunders, and Bloopers) had left Gideon equally dismayed. They had settled, each with his own reservations, on Bones to Pick: Wrong Turns, Dead Ends, and Popular Misconceptions in the Study of Humankind.

More often than not, however, he had been outfoxed by Lester one way or another, and obviously it had just happened again. Well, Lester was probably right; it might sell a few more copies. But it wasn’t going to be easy to live with.

“Okay, Lester,” he said, “what’s done is done.”

“Hey, don’t say it like that, buddy; it hurts my feelings,” he said cheerfully. So, you going to be down here in L.A. any time soon?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Okay, then, see you in Gibraltar.”

“Right, see you – what? You’re coming to Gibraltar?”

“You better believe it. We’re going to do a book launch at that conference you’re going to that’ll knock ’em dead. Drinks on the house, speeches-”

“Lester,” Gideon said, appalled, “give me a break. Why do we want to do a book launch there? These are my colleagues, they’ll-”

“Hey, get off your high horse. This’s got nothing to do with you. You’re not my only author, you know. You know a guy named Rowley Boyd?”

“Uh-huh, I’ve met him a few times.” Rowley, Gideon remembered, was the pleasant, unpretentious, somewhat bookish director of the archaeological museum in Gibraltar.

“Well, he’s been piddling around with a book about Gibraltar Boy for almost three years, and we finally squeezed it out of him – pub date early October. You have any objections to my giving a book party for him?”

“None whatever. If it’s okay with him, it’s okay with me.”