Excerpt from The Emperor of Any Place by Tim Wynne-Jones, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

What happened to Isamu Oshiro?

I think, when you've read the book, you'll see why this is a delicate matter. As I mentioned, Griff has not replied to any of our inquiries. You said he was "difficult." What more can we do? We cannot proceed without his approval; our legal counsel has made that point abundantly clear.

If you could prevail upon him to talk to us, we would be so grateful. If going to see him would help, we will of course reimburse you for any expenses.

Please let me know that you received the book. Thanking you again for your help, I am, most sincerely,

Yours, Leo Kraft

Evan leans back in his father's swivel chair, lets the letter fall to his lap.

Griff has not replied to any of our inquiries.

That would be the infamous Griff, all right: his father's father.

We cannot proceed without his approval.

Evan wonders who "we" is—a we that includes lawyers. Proceed to do what? A creepy feeling comes over him. He leans forward. Thinks hard. As if he has some inkling of what this is about. Something his father said. Something was on his father's mind that last day. What was it?

Evan gets sidetracked. Happens a lot, lately. It's that word "last." He thinks how weird it is that you can suddenly pin that adjective to something. At the time, it didn't feel like the last day—the last anything. It was just Thursday, July third. No big deal. A sunny early summer's day that drifted into a soft evening, a warm night. Evan wasn't going to be starting his job at Hardboiled Inc. until July fifteenth. It was going to be very cool: printing T-shirts, which was a change from flipping hamburgers as far as summer jobs go. But for the time being, it was pure holiday time. He'd been at Rollo's with the guys all that afternoon.

Just Thursday. The evening before the morning when . . .

There were no big plans for the summer except for the job and, before it started, a little road trip with his dad. Now it wouldn't happen. It would never happen. There were these things to unlearn; a whole lot of Never to get used to.

He goes limp. The letter slips from his lap and flutters to the floor. He stares at it. Then his eyes drift back to the book, lying in his shadow. If he leans away, the cover blinds him with sun glare.

There is a bookmark lying on the desktop. Another Christmas present from Big Spender Evan. It's a slip of glossy cardboard with a 3-D pair of feet in socks and Top-Siders hangng off the bottom end, so that when the marker is in a book, it looks as if there were a person in there who has been squashed. Except the bookmark is on the desk. What does that mean, Sherlock?

Well, Watson, it suggests Clifford had finished the book. Finished it and then died. Evan thinks back to that Thursday, two weeks ago. His father had been obsessing. Obsessing about his father. Evan leans back in the chair, which squawks in protest.

He understands grandfathers only as a concept. He's never met Griff, but he is going to very shortly and the irony is kind of astounding. If his father had not been so preoccupied with Griff the day before he died, Evan isn't even sure he would have remembered whether the old man was still alive. So when concerned friends began to say he should contact his grandfather, he did it, obediently, in a kind of a trance. That was another part of grief: the kind of stupor he found himself in a whole lot. Days of daze. Good to have a relative around to pick up the slack, even if it's one you've never met and your father hated. Hmm. There was a gap in the logic there, somewhere, but . . . well, logic had not been trending in his life lately.

And so Griff is coming. And now Evan can't help wondering if he has made some very big-ass mistake.

The Emperor of Any Place. Copyright © 2015 by Tim Wynne-Jones. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA.