The Slow Burn of Wilma Masterson

A new excerpt from The Shipwrecks of Time has been put on the  BOOK & STORY PREVIEWS page.&nbsp

nbsp;   The ceiling of the Institute library was an elaborate Victorian affair comprised of hammered copper panels bearing geometric designs, a legacy of the building’s original designer.  But strategically placed among the sunbursts and scrollwork were small mirrors that granted Stacy Petros unobtrusive surveillance of the Stacks.  A few years before Wilma’s arrival, Stacy had once told her, a grad student from one of the universities had tried to smuggle out an original Boccaccio easily worth five thousand dollars.  When Wilma arrived to return Fichtenau’s The Carolingian Empire and Knowles’ The Evolution of Medieval Thought, Stacy was watching a young grad student, tugging volumes from the shelves and putting them back. 
     “It’s when they hunt around,” Stacy said without turning her head, “that my agita kicks in.”

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