Spending seven years inside the mind and heart of one of American history’s most ruthless, murderous, influential and altogether fascinating criminals is not a task undertaken lightly, nor without stout companionship. Among those who helped guide me on my journey were, in New York: Maureen Egen, Sara Ann Freed, Jay Cocks, Don Congdon, Susan Dempsey, Mari Ellen Goodspeed and the late John F. Kennedy, Jr.; in Hot Springs, Arkansas: Kathern Kinsey, Sandy Sutton, Q. Byrum Hurst, Sr., Chuck Cunning, Bobbie Jones McLane and the staff of the Garland County Historical Society; in Los Angeles: Daniel Melnick, Jeff Berg, Mark Glabman, Michael Nathanson and Greg Foster.
Special thanks to my wife, Kate, and our daughters, Alexandra and Clare, for indulging my enthusiasm for all things gangland these many years.
Finally, thanks to Owen Vincent Madden his own good self, at rest in Hot Springs nearly forty years, whose life and fate provide an object lesson for us all.
Lakeville, Connecticut
Summer 2002