Michael’s first job after graduating from his trade high school was working in the sewers of Rochester, NY, installing and maintaining monitoring equipment. As he and his buddies would say, they didn’t start on the ground floor; they started underneath it. He loved the camaraderie, loved those guys. It was the best job he ever had.

But after a life-threatening near miss, he wondered if there was more. He quit his job, renovated an old fire extinguisher delivery truck into a poor man’s Winnebago, and hit the road to look for it. After wandering the country for six months, he found it: he would go to college to learn how to write. He fully expected to be exposed as an interloper and thrown out—what was a trade school guy doing attending college? Somehow, he wasn’t. But a BA in English (with a Creative Writing minor) later, he accepted that writing quirky short stories wasn’t going to pay the bills. He needed a day job. So, he ended up where many people go when they don’t know what else to do: law school.

The thing they don’t warn you about is that once law school is over, you have to be a lawyer. After a clerkship with the California Supreme Court, he was damn blessed to work for two preeminent law firms: in Boston (once arguing a motion in the courtroom that held the Salem witch trials) and then in San Francisco (eventually becoming a wine industry lawyer). After making partner, Michael once again wondered if there was more. The epiphany? He began setting his alarm for 4:30 a.m. to write before his 10–12 hour days at the office. The early results were a couple of poems published in literary journals. Keep the day job.

Then Providence played her trump card—Michael had a stroke in his early forties, forcing him to give up his law practice. After coming to terms with the fact that life as it was, was never going to be life as it used to be, he went back to his old loves: guitar (never quite in tune); woodworking (managed to make 40 tabletop shuffleboards for Toys for Tots without cutting off a finger); cooking and wine tasting (additional, but happy, poundage); and finally, once again, writing. Only this time, no pressure. No expectations. This time writing what he loved to read: mystery fiction.

Circumstances being what they were and are, a solo literary voyage was out of the question. But who to partner with? Enter Kate, his sister-in-law. Brilliant—every Christmas winning whatever board game they were playing—and one of the best people on the planet, with a profound love of language and books. He’d ask, what books do you like? She’d say all books.