The Treasure of Dead Man's Lane and Other Case Files: Saxby Smart, Private Detective: Book 2

Put on your detective hat . . . Take out your magnifying glass. The Saxby Smart series lets readers solve the case!

Using wit, logic, and the help of his friends, young detective Saxby Smart is back to work, recovering a valuable comic book, searching for hidden treasure, and keeping intruders out of the neighborhood. Saxby records the facts for three new cases in his notebook, laying out all the clues readers need to solve the mysteries on their own.

My parents saved everything, so I know that I began drawing sometime around age two. I haven't paused since. In fact, my drawings now and my drawings then bear a rather strong resemblance. I have gotten slightly better at hands, but horses remain a problem. For an only child, growing up in New York, Texas, South Carolina and finally for most of the time in Annapolis, Maryland, drawing was fine self-entertainment. Then, as now, I have always enjoyed most making pictures that illustrate a story rather than hang on a wall. Today I live in Barrington, Rhode Island with the lovely Zoë B. Alley, author, wife and mother of our two clever children, Cassandra and Max.
I make my pictures in a studio that has a rolling ladder, more books than I can count and many tubes of half-used, rock-hard paint. For the last ten years one of my big projects has been to illustrate new and old stories of Paddington Bear. I have also made pictures for over one hundred other books since I started doing all this right out of college in 1979. I didn't go to art school, but received a BA in Art History from Haverford College and then spent four years as a staff artist at several greeting card companies. Since then, I have spent my working time in my slippers trying to avoid illustrating stories with horses.

R.W. Alley's books include the Paddington Bear series and the Jigsaw Jones books.