I tilted my head back and closed my eyes again, taking care not to cross my legs and wrinkle the Calvin Klein brown tweed that my wife, Kitty, had insisted I wear for the “Tonight Show.” Sherlock Holmes, did the man say? As we glided on our radial cushions toward Burbank, I tried to keep my mind off the show by recalling all the masters of mystery fiction I had been compared with during the tour. Rex Stout and Agatha Christie had been mentioned often, as well as my favorite, S. S. Van Dine. John Dickson Carr’s name had also come up frequently, and Ellery Queen had been suggested by a Chicago Sun-Times reporter who didn’t know that two cousins, Manfred B. Lee and Frederic Dannay, had written under the Queen pseudonym and that Mr. Lee had now gone on to that great inner sanctum in the sky. One intense young woman from Writer’s Digest had even compared what she gushingly called the “vivid realism” of my writing to France’s best, Georges Simenon. The temptation had been strong to tell her that she was being “very kind,” but I resisted. Everyone enjoys a little flattery, even when they know it’s not true.

With all twenty-six of my detective novels still available in paperback and selling as well as when they were first published, both Kitty and my publishers had argued against my going on tour. She had insisted that it was an unnecessary intrusion on my time and energy and they agreed, maintaining that every Matt Lawrence book always made the best-seller lists anyway. Still, I prevailed. I had never been on an author’s promotional merry-go-round before, and I thought the experience would be a good change of pace. It might even supply me with some fresh story material.

Looking back, I had enjoyed every silly day and night of it, as Elia Kazan had said I would. I had no idea whether my appearances had helped or hurt the sales of my latest effort, Where Weep the Silver Willows, but now that it was ending for me, after Carson, I almost regretted having to return to the quiet serenity of our Camelback Mountain home, high above the city of Phoenix.

Exactly forty-eight minutes after I entered the limousine it turned off West Alameda into a forest of high wire fencing, paused at an inner gate long enough for the guard to recognize my driver, and then eased alongside an unmarked door. I thanked my enthusiastic fan behind the steering wheel and went in, immediately recognizing the small, anxious blonde from my publisher’s public relations firm. She had almost given me a coronary yesterday morning, by expertly demonstrating the high-speed cornering ability of her Porsche 924 after we had fallen behind schedule for a taped interview in the posh patio coffee shop at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

“Hi, Mary—or should I start calling you Mario?”