Although I’ve inscribed every word (and note) of this novel myself, my author’s credit might just as well bear the subtitle “as told to Teressa Esposito,” because, in fact, each sentence was first recounted to (and frequently rejected by) my above-named gifted and trusted associate, as has been the case with all my words and music for almost a decade. It is a wondrous thing to have in my life a friend whose counsel I can heed and whose criticism I can accept without question or the reflexive need to defend myself. Teressa is all that and much more. She also proofed and prepared my penciled orchestrations for the Swing CD more skillfully than Gail Prentice did for Ray Sherwood, and infused my compositions with her own significant musical talent. She is always at the heart of my work, whether singing on Broadway eight times a week or steering me away (hopefully with occasional success) from my most dangerous shallows. To her, my lifelong gratitude and admiration.

For this book, I had to recreate a world I never knew, in a time before my time. In addition to Teressa Esposito, two people were astoundingly helpful in aiding my attempt to replicate the Treasure Island, Oakland, and Berkeley of 1940.

The first was my dear friend Deborah Corwin, who had skillfully assisted me with the orchestrations for The Mystery of Edwin Drood on Broadway and was an associate producer of its original cast recording. (I will also add here that when my ten-year-old daughter, Wendy, died in 1986, Deb shouldered me and my inconsolable grief through the next several years of my existence, smoothing my path wherever she could and dealing with a world I was not yet capable of rejoining.) Deb later married a sterling fellow named Dr. Jan Corwin and the two have lived for many years in the lovely East Bay town of Orinda. When I told Deb that part of my story was to be set on Treasure Island, it was she who first mentioned the Claremont (where I stayed while researching the novel) and walked with me across the causeway from Yerba Buena and into one of the few buildings that remain from the Golden Gate Exhibition. As with my Broadway plays of the eighties and nineties, I am once again deeply grateful to Deborah for her assistance, valuable feedback, and priceless friendship.