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Table of Contents
8. Transcript: Crown vs. Jergens
9. "Odd Billy" and the Backpack
13. An Excerpt from Scene Three
14. The New Deputy Takes a Wrong Step
27. One Way to Break Up a Gloomy Day
31. A Second Investigation at Bedside Manor
32. Was Lawrence Really There?
39. J.T.C. Kapchek's Opening Lecture
Published by Firefly Books Ltd., 2003
Copyright © 2002, 2003 K.J. Weber Limited
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 9781770850651
Published in Canada in 2003 by
Firefly Books Ltd.
50 Staples Avenue, Unit 1
Richmond Hill, Ontario L4B 0A7
All characters and events in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
For Matthew,
with the hope that this book
is still around when you are
old enough to read it
Memorandum
To: ALL MYSTERY BUFFS
From: the author
Mystery buffs know there are only two kinds of people in the world: those that love mysteries and, well, that other kind. A tiny majority, the latter are, and that’s a good thing because they are missing something unique. For only in mysteries can a reader get a charge out of winning or losing.
It works like this. Nothing gives mystery buffs more satisfaction than getting ahead in a story and beating the writer to the punch. They get a special charge out of combining logic, analysis, intuition and insight so that before they turn the last page, they already have the problem solved. Yet – and this is what sets mystery lovers apart – nothing thrills them more than when the mystery defeats them, when they turn the last page and find a surprise waiting, something they’d missed.
Here, mystery lovers get no less than forty shots at the fun of winning or losing, in a set of wildly different stories. Every mystery in the book is set up for the reader to solve. At the end of each one there is a question: Who did…? or What did…? or It seems the thief made a mistake. How could…? Like that.
There’s great variety. The settings range from city to country, from swamp to desert, and from movie set to chic inn to a forensics classroom. There are terrorists and con artists, frauds and murderers, kidnappers and bank robbers, hackers and arsonists. You’ll encounter veteran detectives, medical examiners, special agents, and crime-scene investigators.
There’s