Bert Navin, writing from Dublin, Ohio, where stories and whimsical ideas have a way of finding me.

They've been finding me for decades — a lifetime of collecting stories, overheard, remembered, half-invented, with more than thirty-five manuscripts around the house waiting for their turn. Lately I've gone back to a crime thriller I first began in 1999, and it turns out the story knew where it was going all along; I just had to catch up.

Some are children's stories, meant to spark a laugh or a little wonder. Others take darker turns into murder, mystery, and the corners of human nature.

Whatever the story, I hope it finds you somewhere comfortable—with a smile on your face, tears in your eyes, a laugh you didn't expect, or your heart pounding as you reach for the next page.

Just don't blame me if you can't put it down.