The Fourth Bear

Tif Loehnis, Eric Simonoff and all the hardworking associates at Janklow and Nesbit, without whom I would as likely as not still be making Snicketty-Dicketty breakfast cereal commercials, and hating it.

And:

To the master himself, Jonathan Swift, for the initial inspiration for this novel:

He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers.

—Gulliver’s Travels

, “A Voyage to Laputa”

Author’s Note

The Nursery Crime Division, the Reading Police Department and the Oxford & Berkshire constabulary in this book are entirely fictitious, and any similarities to authentic police procedures, protocol or forensic techniques are entirely coincidental, and quite unintentional.