Eleven Pipers Piping (60 page)

I’m a member of a band of sorts, though it doesn’t play the pipes, and there are more than eleven of us. But you need a band to write and publish a novel and I’m very fortunate to be joined with people who play in perfect harmony. (If anyone’s off pitch at times, it’s muggins here.)

I am particularly grateful to my redoubtable editor at Random House, Kate Miciak, whose enthusiasm for Tom Christmas and his world keeps my mind buzzing and my backside planted where it needs to be—in front of my computer. I am grateful, too, to her colleagues Randall Klein and copy editor Laura Jorstad for the expertise they bring to turning manuscript into finished book, to designer Marietta Anastassatos and illustrator Ben Perini for the truly delightful cover, and to Kristin Cochrane of Doubleday Canada for her championship in the true north proud and free—which also happens to be the home of my agent, Dean Cooke, to whom I am also most grateful.

Thank you, too, to Sharon Klein and Leah Johanson, of Random House, for zeal in the name of publicity, and to those who aided and abetted, among them Rory Bruce, Gil Doll, Cathy Tippett, John Toews, Jack and Wendy Bumsted, and Michael and Susan Hare.

I am also grateful to those who read and criticized portions of
the early drafts of the manuscript of this book—Rosie Chard, Sandra Vincent, Frances-Mary Brown, Perry Holmes, and Spencer Holmes—and to those who have lent their help in various ways—Michael Phillips, Clark Saunders, Barbara Huck, Peter St. John, Bill Blaikie, Carl Antymniuk, Pierre Bédard, Bradley Curran, Neire Mercer, Sara Raymond, Gerry Convery, Jill Treby, Barbara Robson, June Milloy, Faye Sierhuis, and John (“Pigblisters”) Whiteway. Lastly but not leastly, thanks to The Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of Winnipeg for an excellent—and really most scrumptious—Burns Supper.

I remain most grateful to the Reverend David Treby, vicar of St. Mary and St. Gabriel’s Church in Stoke Gabriel, Devon, England, for his readiness to answer all my questions about the finer points of the Church of England. All inaccuracies and curious interpretations in that quarter are entirely mine.

Finally, I am very grateful to the good people of Stoke Gabriel whose splendid village set in Devon’s soft hills provides me with much inspiration.

C. C. B
ENISON
has worked as a writer and editor for newspapers and magazines, as a book editor, and as a contributor to nonfiction books. A graduate of the University of Manitoba and Carleton University, he is the author of five previous novels, including
Twelve Drummers Drumming
and
Death at Buckingham Palace
. He lives in Winnipeg, where he is at work on the next Father Christmas mystery,
Ten Lords A-Leaping
.

www.ccbenison.com