Thanks, as always, to my writing group: Chuck Palahniuk, Lidia Yuknavitch, Monica Drake, Erin Leonard, Mary Wysong, Suzy Vitello, Diana Jordan, and Cheryl Strayed. You could all write these books by now. My good friend and editor, Kelley Ragland, has unfailing instincts when it comes to my work, and has made this book better in a hundred ways. Joy Harris and Adam Reed, your awesomeness knows no bounds. Andy Martin and George Witte, you have always been my champions, and I will always be grateful to you. Hector DeJean, my publicist at Minotaur, thank you for being tall and able to talk comics, and thank you for all that publicity stuff, too. Everyone at St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur is so classy and decent and smart. My husband and best friend, Marc Mohan, gave me a skull for Christmas. “I know you like dead things,” he said. How lucky am I? Eliza Fantastic Mohan, this is the book I wrote when you were in first grade and finished when you were in second grade. If you are reading this, and you are under twenty-five, you are in big trouble, missy. A terrific bookstore here in Portland—Murder by the Book—will have gone out of business by the time this book is published. They have always been lovely to me and have hosted wonderful events, and they will be missed. Go buy a book at a local independent bookstore in their memory. Courtenay Hameister, Jason Rouse, and Sean McGrath, thank you for occasionally inviting me into the LiveWire writers’ room. There is nothing like sketch comedy to cleanse the palate after a day of unapologetic heathenism and murder. Allison Frost and the gang at OPB’s Think Out Loud, I do a little dance every time you invite me to be a Culture Club guest. Thank you, Bill and Mary, for the surveillance, and for the absinthe. And last, the world lost a good dog this year. Franklin, the Australian shepherd who finds the skeleton at the beginning of The Night Season, has died. He never did find a human corpse in real life, but he gave it one hell of a go and I think he got close a couple of times.

Also by Chelsea Cain

ALSO BY CHELSEA CAIN

Kill You Twice

The Night Season

Evil at Heart

Sweetheart

Heartsick

About the Author

About the Author

CHELSEA CAIN’s first five novels featuring Archie Sheridan were all New York Times bestsellers. Also the author of Confessions of a Teen Sleuth, a parody based on the life of Nancy Drew, and several nonfiction titles, she was born in Iowa, raised in Bellingham, Washington, and now lives in Portland, Oregon. Visit her at www.chelseacain.com.