Murder in Central Park

New York City is fun to write about. Almost anything any thrillfest you can imagine ... short of being shot into space or hired as Lady Gaga's tailor ... is likely to happen. Whenever I think I'm wrong about that I am proven, well, wrong.For example, when beginning a yarn set in Central Park I wanted to show how wild the place can be and so cast about for wild animals to place there. I thought, a resident falcon or two, some exotic migratory birds, a large murder of crows, perhaps I would take a chance and install a beaver in one of the ponds. Then Amy Eddings of WNYC, the city's Public Radio station, broadcast an April Fools Day report about a plan—taken very seriously by some community groups—to introduce wolves into Central Park.That was just as I was beginning to write "Murder in Central Park." I dreamed up a canopy researcher living in a cabin in the treetops so as better to observe tool-making behavior in crows, a scientist crammed into a far corner of the park studying...