Cathy Lazere is a freelance writer who specializes in international corporate finance and technology. She has worked as an editor at McGraw-Hill and Business International, a division of the Economist Group. Ms. Lazere holds a B.A. from Yale and an M.B.A. from New York University.

Dennis Shasha is a professor of computer science at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. He holds a B.S. from Yale, an M.S. from Syracuse and a Ph.D. from Harvard. His previous books include Database Tuning: A Principled Approach and two mathematical detective stories, The Puzzling Adventures of Dr. Ecco and Codes, Puzzles, and Conspiracy.