My research in Pittsburgh was made a pleasure thanks to Animal Friends of Pittsburgh and Robert Fragasso of the Fragasso Group. Robert was remarkably generous with his time and resources. I would also like to thank Lisa Lazor at the John Heinz History Center.
In New York, many thanks to Joseph Ditta of the New-York Historical Society. For whiskey, I am in debt to Gary Regan and Mike Veach. I was very lucky in my research on the Bank of the United States to have the generous help of the world’s foremost authorities on early American banking: David J. Cowen, Richard Sylla, and Robert E. Wright. Carl G. Karsch helped me understand the logistics of the Bank at Carpenters’ Hall. Unfortunately I was obligated to remove numerous sections with Thomas Jefferson; nevertheless I must thank Jeff Looney of Monticello for his input and advice.
I’d also like to thank the hospitality of the many coffee shops which I’ve made my homes away from home: the late and lamented Café Espuma, where this book was first conceived; Ruta Maya in downtown San Antonio, where I worked on the early drafts; and Olmos Perk, where the book was finished and polished.
I am indebted to those whose ears I bent during Thrillerfest 2006, especially Joseph Finder, Katherine Neville, and Leslie Silbert. And I am eternally grateful to the early readers of this very long manuscript: Billy Taylor and Sophia Hollander.
As always, I am grateful for the help and support from my phenomenal agent, Liz Darhansoff. If this novel is worth reading, it is only so because of the hard work and insightful, creative, and encouraging (if sometimes unwelcome) advice of my extraordinary editor, Jennifer Hershey, as well as that of Dana Isaacson. I suspect myself of having more typos than the average writer, so thanks to Dennis Ambrose at Random House and Janet Hotson Baker, my copy editor. I hope I am not jumping the gun, but assuming my publicist will once more be Sally Marvin, I will thank her in advance for her wonderful and tireless work. If it’s not Sally, then I’ll be content to thank her for her work in the past. Because of the necessary chronology of the publishing schedule, publicists don’t get the public praise they deserve.
For reasons that need not be stated, I must thank my family for their love and encouragement, and my cats for their therapeutic value and for making sure I never overslept.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DAVID LISS is the author of A Spectacle of Corruption, The Coffee Trader, and A Conspiracy of Paper, winner of the 2000 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. He lives in San Antonio with his wife and daughter, and can be reached via his website, www.davidliss.com.
