I'd had enough of New York City--the crime, the filth, the mean streets, the daily acts of random violence. And after twenty-plus years in the hurly-burly of magazine journalism, it seemed the right time to slow down, find a nice, quiet place to write books and do some teaching, a place where my three young children could grow up without worrying about having their bicycles hijacked. Just before Christmas, my wife and I decided to move to Boulder, Colorado.
What happened in Boulder on Christmas night was, among other things, proof that tragedy honors no boundaries. Of course we knew that,...