There are many people to thank, but first a little bit of history. My interest in the Boston Strangler case was first agitated back in 1999 when I sat in the living room of a wonderful old Boston cop named Jack Barry who had just retired after fifty-three years on the job. Decades after the last murder, he could still reel off all the Strangler’s victims by name.
Unbeknownst to him or me, Boston Police Captain Tim Murray, probably the best cold case cop in the country, had secretly brought some old evidence into the department’s new DNA lab to answer one of the most vexing questions in the city’s history: Was Albert DeSalvo really the Boston Strangler?
When I wrote that story on the front page of the Globe, it shot around the world in what seemed like a minute. Swamped with publicity, the department’s higher-ups shut Murray down before he could come up with answers, but the uncertainty over whether DeSalvo was the right guy was out in the open all over again.
Was it DeSalvo? Author Susan Kelly presents the best case that it wasn’t, in the exhaustively reported and well-written book, The Boston Stranglers. I borrowed liberally from her work in shaping this plot.
Likewise, I thank Casey Sherman, nephew of the last of the Strangler victims, for penning the excellent Search for the Strangler: My Hunt for Boston’s Most Notorious Killer.
Also, thanks to a legion of Boston Globe and Herald reporters for their vivid coverage of the crimes while they were happening, and in retrospect as well.
At Atria books, I’ve been fortunate to be placed in the great custody of Sarah Branham, as probing and as kind-hearted an editor as I’ve ever met. Thanks as well to editor Emily Bestler for seeing this project through from start to finish.
Thanks to my old friend and constant sounding board, Mitch Zuckoff, a professor at Boston University, for his spot-on final read of the manuscript. The guy could copy-edit the Constitution and find a dozen mistakes.
I’ve been blessed with the best literary agent in New York, Richard Abate of International Creative Management. These novels simply don’t happen without him and his team.
Thanks as well to friends and colleagues at the Boston Globe for their constant support on these projects, most especially to my own editor, Michael Larkin, and the paper’s editor, Marty Baron. The newspaper business is going through hell, but I still have the best job on the planet.
And to family, my most enduring and endearing readers, thank you.