Christine, Sam, Emily, and Ryan, I am so lucky to call you family. And dearest Lulu, you have failed your city. Thank you for weathering my moods and caring about my little band of thugs.
Many books helped Ketterdam, the Barrel, and my team of crows take shape, but the most essential titles were Sarah Wise’s The Blackest Streets: The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum; The Coffee Trader by David Liss; Amsterdam: A History of the World’s Most Liberal City by Russell Shorto; Criminal Slang: The Vernacular of the Underworld Lingo by Vincent J. Monteleone; David Maurer ’s The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man; and Stealing Rembrandts: The Untold Stories of Notorious Art Heists by Anthony M. Amore and Tom Mashberg.
One more thing: This book wanted to be revised to the sounds of the Black Keys, the Clash, and the Pixies, but it was born in a drafty old schoolhouse with In a Time Lapse playing on a continuous loop, and a bat flapping around the eaves. Many thanks to composer Ludovico Einaudi. And the bat.