My thanks to Dan Dos Santos, the brilliant artist for the Esther Diamond series, who has raised the bar still higher with this dynamite cover. Thanks also to the tremendous co-publishers at DAW Books, Sheila Gilbert and Betsy Wollheim, to managing editor Joshua Starr (who puts up with a lot), and to the rest of the wonderful team at DAW Books.
Finally, I must emphasize that this book is a work of fiction and does not seriously seek to question, challenge, or undermine the inherent and indisputable goodness of all cookies everywhere. Indeed, throughout the writing of The Misfortune Cookie, I relied heavily, as I so often do, on the Elizabeth Bevarly Theory of Plotting (Liz is a prolific novelist and a friend of mine): There is no plot problem that cookies cannot solve.
Anyhow, I hope you’ve enjoyed The Misfortune Cookie so much that you immediately succumb to an uncontrollable impulse to go eat in a Chinese restaurant. Which is probably where Esther Diamond will be until she, her friends, and her nemeses return for their next misadventure—which book title will be announced on my website after I come up with one that She Who Must Be Obeyed approves . . .
—Laura Resnick