The Outsider

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Thanks are due to Russ Dorr, my able research assistant, and also to a father and son team, Warren and Daniel Silver, who helped me with the legal aspects of this story. They were uniquely qualified to do so, as Warren spent much of his life as a defense attorney in Maine, and his son, although now in private practice, has had a distinguished career as a prosecutor in New York. Thanks to Chris Lotts, who knew about el cuco and las luchadoras; thanks to my daughter, Naomi, who hunted down the children’s book about “el cucuy.” Thanks to Nan Graham, Susan Moldow, and Roz Lippel of Scribner; thanks to Philippa Pride at Hodder & Stoughton. Special thanks to Katherine “Katie” Monaghan, who read the first hundred or so pages of this story on an airplane, while we were on tour, and wanted more. A writer of fiction never hears more encouraging words than those.

Thanks, as always, to my wife. I love you, Tabby.

A final word, this about the setting. Oklahoma is a wonderful state, and I met wonderful people there. Some of those wonderful people will say I got a lot wrong, and probably I did; you have to be in a place for years before you get the flavor just right. I did the best I could. For the rest, you must forgive me. Flint City and Cap City are, of course, fictional.