ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my granddaughter Viola Jane Carito for helping me with the seal research for this book. Together we read (many, many times) André, The Famous Harbor Seal (by Fran Hodgkins, illustrated by Yetti Frenkel, Down East Books, 2003), Do Seals Ever . . . ? (by Fran Hodgkins, illustrated by Marjorie Leggitt, Down East Books, 2017), and our favorite, Cecily’s Summer (by Nan Lincoln, illustrated by Patricia J. Wynne, Bunker Hill, 2005). I also read the books for grown-ups, The Summer of Cecily (by Nan Lincoln, Bunker Hill, 2004) and A Seal Called Andre (by Harry Goodridge and Lew Dietz, Dea, 2014). The days are long past when a civilian could have a harbor seal as a pet as Harry Goodridge did, or even foster an orphan pup as Nan Lincoln did, and for good reasons. Nonetheless their books provide wonderful, intimate portraits of these smart sea mammals.

I loved the book The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home (by George Howe Colt, Scribner, 2003) for the glimpse of generations of a family occupying the same old summer place. Thanks especially for giving me the image of Marguerite Morales’s reaction to the place she knew in childhood rendered in two-dimensional floor plans.

I would like to thank my sailing neighbors, Jack and Zdenka Griswold, for helping me figure out how long it would take the Morrow yacht to get from Boston to Busman’s Harbor in 1898, and what tasks Terry Durand might do aboard the Dark Lady to repay his brother, Chris, for the temporary housing.

Bruce Robert Coffin took time out from writing his own Detective Byron Mystery series to help me understand what Terry Durand would have been charged with for the shooting at Hudson’s and how much prison time he might have served.

Thank you to Jessica Ellicott, who endured a marathon video session while we plotted the mystery. And thanks to Sherry Harris, who reviewed the manuscript and gave me many helpful comments even while serving as the busy president of the National Board of Sisters in Crime.

Thanks to everyone at Kensington Publishing. I always appreciate your flexibility and willingness to try new things in the face of a changing market. I would like to especially acknowledge my editor, John Scognamiglio, and my publicist, Larissa Ackerman. I’d also like to thank my agent, John Talbot.

To my Wicked blogmates, Maddy Day, Jessica Ellicott, Sherry Harris, Julia Henry, and Liz Mugavero, I couldn’t do this without you.

Special thanks this year to my Portland, Maine, crime-writing community. Your embrace of Bill and me since we moved to Portland has made this major life change so much easier and even more wonderful. Thank you Brenda Buchanan, Richard J. Cass, Bruce Robert Coffin, Chris Holm, Gayle Lynds, and Joseph Souza, and all your amazing spouses.

Thank you, as ever, to my husband, Bill Carito. Bill develops almost all the recipes for the Maine Clambake Mysteries, in this case donating his work to Livvie, Fee, and Chris. He has been so insanely patient and supportive this year while I slipped in an extra book, Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody, and an extra novella, “Hallowed Out” for Haunted House Murder (both from Kensington). I cannot, truly, express my gratitude and love.

And to my family, who arrived en masse to visit us in Key West on the day I turned in this manuscript, I love you all, Bill Carito, Rob, Sunny, and Viola Carito, and Kate, Luke, and Etta Donius, our newest addition.