With a lifetime of small town life stacked behind me like a pile of comfortable pillows, I felt obligated to write a tribute to the sights, sounds and characters I have encountered in my journey through the years. The Study combines my undying interest in things mysterious and other-worldly with the idea that things of a more mundane nature. The Study is just one of a number of novels I have undertaken over the past thirty years filling in the cracks between a busy professional life as a government official, wife and mother of three very diverse children.