I trust North Carolinians will forgive me for rearranging the geography and educational system of the Tar Heel State a bit to suit my nefarious means. If it’s any consolation, they can rest assured that I did this with the utmost respect for the state with the best basketball teams in the country.

JEFFERY DEAVER is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty-two suspense novels, and the originator of the acclaimed detective hero Lincoln Rhyme, featured in the bestsellers The Cold Moon, The Twelfth Card, The Vanished Man, The Stone Monkey, The Empty Chair, The Coffin Dancer, and The Bone Collector. His new thriller, The Sleeping Doll, is available in hardcover from Simon & Schuster. As William Jefferies, he is the author of Shallow Graves, Bloody River Blues, and Hell’s Kitchen. His short fiction is anthologized in two acclaimed collections from Pocket Books: Twisted and More Twisted. He is a five-time Edgar Award nominee, an Anthony Award nominee, a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Reader’s Award for Best Short Story of the Year, and a winner of the British Thumping Good Read Award. He has also won a Steel Dagger for best thriller of the year for Garden of Beasts and a Short Story Dagger from the British Crime Writers’ Association. His novel The Bone Collector became a Universal Pictures feature film starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. A former attorney, Deaver has been hailed as “the best psychological thriller writer around” (The Times, London).