With each Alexa Glock forensics mystery, my indebtedness to my Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks editor Diane DiBiase grows. I think she understands Alexa Glock better than I do. Her support and suggestions always make my books better. Thank you, Diane.
Thanks to the Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks cover design team—wow—and to Assistant Content Editor Beth Deveny. Her fact-checking and editing are extraordinaire.
Thanks to my agent, Laura Bradshaw of Bradshaw Literary Agency.
I am lucky to have Dr. Heidi Eldridge, director of Crime Scene Investigations at George Washington University, as my forensic consultant. She is over-the-top smart with a sense of humor. She saves me from errors big and small. In one fingerprinting scene Alexa used the word pinkie. Heidi said, “Little finger. No forensic scientist would say pinkie.” :) (My face went pink.)
Dr. Leslie Anderson, Canterbury District Health Board forensic pathologist, read over my autopsy scenes and helped me understand more about blunt force trauma. (No—you can’t tell from which way a blow came.) Dr. Anderson says it is a privilege to be the last doctor a person sees and to be able to speak on their behalf.
Dr. Charlotte King, professor of anatomy at the University of Otago, read my strontium isotopic analysis scenes. Dr. King’s research focuses on the use of bone and tooth chemistry to solve forensic and archaeological problems. She read a scene where Alexa discovers notches on upper and lower teeth of an exhumed Chinese miner. Dr. King said, “It’s really nice you’ve put the pipe facets on the incisors, as European pipe smokers tend to have pipe facets on their canines.” (This was luck on my part.)
My writing group is my village. Thank you Nancy Peacock, Lisa Bobst, Denise Cline, Linda A. Janssen, Ann Parrent, and Karen Pullen.
Thank you to Brandon L. Garrett, Duke law professor and author of Autopsy of a Crime Lab: Exposing the Flaws in Forensics. His book and willingness to answer my questions helped me understand the devastating consequences of faulty science.
Thank you to the archivist and staff at the Lakes District Museum in Arrowtown, New Zealand.
Lastly, thank you to my husband, Forrest. He has my back throughout the writing-a-book process and doesn’t mind when I ask (in a panic): What did Alexa’s father do for a living? Not only that; he knows the answer.