For years I have offered various nonprofits around the country the opportunity for one or more of their patrons to appear in my books as a character as a way for them to raise money. The winner never knows if they’ll be a good guy or a bad guy. They take their chances. This year the Naples, Florida, Friends of the Library brought two of their supporters to immortality. Holly McNee Jensen and Leslie Stevens. Holly and Leslie, I gave you both starring roles and I hope you enjoy this crazy duo. And Carin MacLean, who generously gave to my old grammar school, Stella Maris/Christ Our King in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, I hope you enjoy your pedestal and I’m sorry, well, I should’ve sent flowers. Last, I’d like to thank Stubble the dog’s owners for their generous support of the Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey. Although I have barely met any of these kind and generous souls, and Stubble not at all, I am sure they are nothing like the characters they portray. What we do know about them is that they support the arts, literacy, and education, a worthy pursuit all around. And so I salute y’all and thank you again on behalf of these fine institutions. On a side note, my sister Lynn tells me she was stopped by a friend at her bridge club who said her daughter was very upset because she was supposed to be a character in this book or last year’s (details were unclear) and I asked her to find out who this was and I’d take care of it right away. Well, that never happened. So if you are that person, please contact me on Facebook or Instagram with a little bit of validation and we can remedy the situation.

Sometimes friends and acquaintances just show up in my pages. Usually it’s because I’m thinking of them but always because I need another name for a character. This time, Andrea Blatt, Barbara Hagerty, Joanne Langbein, Anthony Stith, and Darlene and Mark Tanenbaum slipped in and I hope y’all get a kick out of seeing your name in print. And Darlene and Mark, special thanks for keeping me hydrated and fed during the last days of writing this book.