To Mr Masashi Okamoto and the staff of Japan’s excellent Nara Hotel, who took in three very lost travellers and made them welcome.
With thanks to Michelle Geissbuhler, and her alter ego “Wilma Roland,” for joining in the fun during the 2013 spring campaign.
To Commodore Everette Hoard of the Queen Mary, Long Beach, who answered many odd questions about cruise liners.
To Evelyn Thompson, for setting this foreigner straight on matters Japanese, and Jean Lukens, ever ready to put pen to paper for the sake of illustrating Laurie King.
To Liz McCarthy of the Bodleian Library, with thanks for the archival boxes, and apologies for the misdeeds of certain characters herein.
And just to be clear: no books were stolen from Bodley in the making of this book, just as no misdeeds have ever been known to happen in Tokyo’s peerless Imperial Hotel, in any of its manifestations.
Clearly, any errors that remain in the book were despite the best efforts of these good people.
NOVELS BY LAURIE R. KING
MARY RUSSELL NOVELS
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice
A Monstrous Regiment of Women
A Letter of Mary
The Moor
O Jerusalem
Justice Hall
The Game
Locked Rooms
The Language of Bees
The God of the Hive
Beekeeping for Beginners: A Short Story
Pirate King
Garment of Shadows
Dreaming Spies
Touchstone
The Bones of Paris
KATE MARTINELLI NOVELS
A Grave Talent
To Play the Fool
With Child
Night Work
The Art of Detection
AND
A Darker Place
Folly
Keeping Watch
Califia’s Daughters (as Leigh Richards)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LAURIE R. KING is the New York Times bestselling author of fourteen Mary Russell mysteries, the Stuyvesant & Grey historical mysteries, and five contemporary novels featuring Kate Martinelli, as well as the acclaimed novels A Darker Place, Folly, and Keeping Watch. She lives in Northern California.
www.laurierking.com
Facebook.com/LaurieRKing
@LaurieRKing