“Art, my friend. It is art.”
“I know nothing about that, but if you applied yourself a sober man set on a goal, what with your talent, and your contracts with Montgomery Ward and all—”
“What contracts? We never had nothing in writing, Trelaine and I.”
“Ohhh . . . mistake.”
“Besides, they’re not likely to hire a former ‘felon’ even if innocent, not since the papers carried on how I murdered all those women, and their own account executive!”
“Well look, for the moment, we’ve . . . we’ve got Ransom near dead, so think of someone other than your bloody self, heh?”
“Aye . . . you’re cut of good cloth after all, Griff. I’ll ne’er forget this kindness.”
Griffin pushed him out the basement door. “Just go and try to be inconspicuous.”
“Yes, yes, of course!” Philo was off, a bounce in his step that Griffin had never seen before, like a man who’d just been satisfied by a woman, but this had to do with freedom.
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ROBERT W. WALKER
Given a taste of it, would the man be capable of honoring his bargain? Griff doubted it, and in the back of his mind began to plot where he’d have to hide when Kohler learned of this
“early release program” instituted by a second-rank inspector. Then it dawned on him how to handle it no matter what.
Claim it by order of Inspector Alastair Ransom, his last order before passing out, and quite possibly a man’s dying wish. Pass the bloody buck to a man near death.
The wound sustained by Ransom proved a nasty one. The entry point the size of a silver dollar, and the exit wound a gaping fist-sized explosion of flesh and tissue. If Dr. Christian Fenger couldn’t keep Ransom alive, no one could; if Fenger could save him, it’d be a testament to genius and skill.
Either way, it remained the will of their unknowable God.
How was one to know, Jane wondered as she watched, fascinated, at Fenger’s side in the operating theater, dressed as Dr. James Francis Tewes. What was most excruciating was the interminable waiting—filling Jane with grief and pain.
Jane realized how much she’d learned from Alastair, and just how much he meant to her after all.
Perhaps and hopefully, the Almighty had yet to finish with Ransom, Jane thought while watching the surgeon’s scalpel flit over his flesh. But then again, perhaps God was absolutely done molding this man.
Surgeon Fenger’s work was that of an artist. Jane became mesmerized, focusing on the surgery. A voice in her head kept repeating the prayer: Save him, save him for me, Christian.
Another voice in her head answered: Ransom’s fate lies in the hands of his Maker, not Christian. Still, it seemed a tug-o-war between God and surgeon.
In which case, Jane Francis feared that Ransom’s life ended here.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A novel like City for Ransom does not get written in a vac-uum so much as a mineshaft. Thanks to an array of authors ahead of me, authors whose fascination with Chicago created a rich vein for a storyteller like myself to mine, City for Ransom, and its Dickensian ala Conan Doyle characterizations, came into being. My first novel, penned while I was a sophomore and junior in high school in Chicago, required research if I were to convey the inner workings of the famous Underground Railroad through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old Missouri boy ( Daniel & The Wrongway Railway, 1982). Since then, all forty-two novels I’ve seen through to publication have conveyed research, whether police proce-durals, suspense, young adult, even horror titles. To create City for Ransom and its sequels ( Vengeance for Ransom, Innocence for Ransom, and hopefully more) the author was led to the “Mother Lode” by Mr. Kenan Heise, author, historian, Tribune reporter, and owner of the sadly closed bookstore, the Chicago Book Exchange. Mr. Heise, who gave assistance to my hero, John Jakes, when Jakes needed to dig into Chicago history, told me where to sink my pickaxe for the best titles on Chicago during the years I wished to write about—Detective Alastair Ransom’s gaslight Chicago. The following $300 worth of books are by authors I must ac-326
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
knowledge, most of which were sold to me by Mr. Heise, as most—like all great books—are out of print: Medicine in Chicago 1850–1950 by Thomas Neville Bonner; Reminiscences of Chicago During the Civil War, Citadel Books, Chicago by Finis Farr; The Gangs of Chicago by Herbert Asbury; Gem of the Prairie by Herbert Asbury; Chicago by Stephen Longstreet; Wicked City by Curt Johnson with R. Craig Sautter; Chicago by Lloyd Lewis and Henry Justin Smith; Chicago Ragtime by Richard Lindberg, Crime in Chicago by Richard Lindberg; German Chicago by Raymond Lohne; The Chicagoization of America by Kenan Heise; The Journey of Silas P. Bigelow by Kenan Heise; and Perfect Cities—Chicago Utopias by James Gilbert, Other titles I stumbled on and devoured for my understanding of the city where I grew up include The Pinkertons: The Detective Agency that Made History by James Horan; The Real World of Sherlock Holmes by Peter Costello; Chicago Then and Now by Elizabeth McNulty; Graveyards of Chicago by Matt Hucke and Ursula Bielski; Chicago’s Famous Buildings by Franz Schutze and Kevin Harrington; Chicago—A Pictorial History by Herman Kogan and Lloyd Wendt; Elmer McCurdy—The Misadventures in Life and Af-terlife of an American Outlaw by Mark Svenold; Forever Open, Clear and Free by Lois Wille; Central Michigan Avenue by Ellen Christensen; Man and the Beast Within by Benjamin Walker, and America by Alastair Cooke.
However, the book that sparked the initial idea for City for Ransom goes way back to the 80s for me (it’s been percolating for a long time). This title Dean R. Koontz insisted I read: Jurgen Thorwald’s Century of the Detective. Even then Inspector Alastair Ransom was roaming about inside my head looking for a way out while I spent decades with Jes-sica Coran in my popular Instinct Series and Lucas Stonecoat in my Edge Series.
Thanks also to the wonderful team at Avon/HarperCollins, especially copyeditor and detail-conscious Patrice
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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Silverstein; May Chen, who handled me with grace; and brave young editor Lyssa Keusch, who proved the only person in all the publishing world to see the potential of the rough, early stages of City, and without whom Ransom would never have found his way out of this author’s mineshaft (head), so that now this “gem of the prairie” named Alastair has finally come into the gaslight, proudly riding in a hansom cab, his scrimshaw wolf’s-head cane tapping to the beat of hooves.
About the Author
R O B E R T W. W A L K E R
Master of suspense and bone-chilling terror, Robert W. Walker, a graduate of Northwestern University, has penned forty-two novels and has taught language and writing for over twenty-five years. Having grown up in the Windy City and having been born in the shadow of Shiloh Battlefield, near Corinth, Mississippi, Robert has two writing traditions to uphold—the Chicago one and the Southern one—all of which makes him uniquely suited to write City for Ransom and its sequels, which he is currently working on.