ELAINE LOESER is a fiction writer, reformed lawyer, and enthusiastic Chicagoan. While living in Los Angeles, she wrote for the long-running NBC drama “Law & Order”, as well as other television dramas. She is a member of The Writers Guild of America, West, The Chicago Literary Club and New York Women in Film and Television. Loeser is the owner (the accurate, but not preferred term) of two 21-year-old red-eared slider turtles who inspired the events in her debut children’s book, The Case of the Pinched Stradivarius. They were brought home one day from downtown L.A. by her husband, Jerry, for whom this was and still is, standard operating procedure. The events depicted here are fictional, and not based on any actual people. The animals, however, are very real indeed.