This was the fourth novel I wrote about Mitch Tobin, using the pen name Tucker Coe. I didn’t yet know it, but it was also next to the last novel in that series. I have lived long enough to get over my astonishment at how much society and culture can change in a lifetime. The subculture in A Jade In Aries has been criminalized for nearly a hundred years, and there was no reason to expect it to change anytime soon. Coincidentally, at the same time I was writing A Jade In Aries, the Stonewall uprising took place in Greenwich Village in June of 1969, changing everything. For the better. – Donald Westlake*