When I pulled open my underwear drawer that morning, I was looking for underwear. I found a book, hardcover, with a sticky note on it saying, "Read NOW." Since I live alone, I was rather curious how it got there. I looked it over. Beneath the sticky note, the cover showed an image of a chalk outline on the street, a book lying at the outline's outstretched hand. The title "End Notes" loomed large over the image, but I couldn't find an author's name anywhere on the book.

I checked the summary on the inside book flap. "When Peter finds a strange novel about a book-related murder in his closet, untangling the mystery puts his very life in danger!" That being my name, I sat at my desk to think about it and found myself staring at the cover of the book — the small one drawn on the cover, that is.

It had the same title, but the illustration was different. I had to root around for a magnifying glass before I could make out the image of a man at a desk, hunched over a book with a magnifying glass, a figure with a knife looming behind him.