Dr. Sarah Neely provided valuable medical advice. Jill Koniecsko made it possible for me to navigate Lexis-Nexis. Judi Phillips knew exactly how a robber baron would have constructed an ornamental pond in 1903. Jesus Mata helped VI. with her neighborhood Mexican restaurant. Sandy Weiss was a demon on technology topics and Jolynn Parker’s Fact Factory as always turned up amazing results. Eva Kuhn advised me on Catherine Bayard’s music tastes. The senior C-Dog did his usual witty riff on chapter titles; chapter titles, as always, are provided in loving memory of Don Sandstrom, who cherished them.
Michael Flug, archivist at the Vivian Harsh Collection, was immensely helpful in directing me to documents about the Federal Negro Theater Project. Margaret Kinsman introduced me to this great resource in my backyard.
The great forensic pathologist Dr. Robert Kirschner died in the summer of 2002. His presence in prisons and at mass graves from Nigeria to Bosnia, from El Salvador to Chicago’s South Side, brought a measure of justice to victims of torture and mass murder, and his loss is a grievous one. Despite the nature and importance of his work, Dr. Kirschner also took pleasure in VI’s adventures. For the last sixteen years, he found time to advise me on the ways and means her adversaries used to murder. During his final illness, we talked about the unpleasant ends the characters in Blacklist were meeting. I miss him as an adviser, a friend, and a great humanitarian.
This is a work of fiction. I do mention historical events, such as the Federal Theater Project, the Dies Committee, HUAC, and some figures active in the arts in the nineteen-thirties, like Shirley Graham, as part of the background of the novel, All characters who actually play a role in the story, as well as events like the destruction of the Fourth Amendment, are solely the fabrication of a brain made frenzied by chronic insomnia. Any resemblance to any real person, institution, government or legislation is purely coincidental.