ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For their contributions to this book, I’d like to thank: my agent, Nancy Yost, for her unending enthusiasm; my editor, Joe Blades, for his continuing encouragement and helpful suggestions; and the staff at Murder By The Book in Houston, Texas, for their support and friendship.

I’d particularly like to thank Robert Power, M.D.; Kelly Peavey; Megan Bladen-Blinkoff and Paul Messina; Karen Bell of the Smithville, Texas, Public Library; Sergeants Corky Marshall and Jim Nilson of the Austin Police Department Bomb Squad; and Smithville Chief of Police Lee Nusbaum for their expertise. Any errors are my fault, not theirs.

And as always, Austin’s Black Shoes: Jan Grape, Susan Rogers Cooper, and Barbara Burnett Smith, for their willingness to visit Mirabeau repeatedly (despite its lack of a really good bar).