SEVERAL POLICE OFFICERS and forensic medical specialists gave up their time to discuss aspects of their work with me. My thanks to Dr Allan Cala, Dr Anthony Samuels, Jenny Chrystal, Jim Migro, Dr Isabel Brouwer and Penelope Riley. The insights into their professions are theirs, any mistakes in procedure are mine.
The escalating nature of BMK’s offending, and the hunt for him, owe a debt to three superb works of non-fiction: Michelle McNamara’s I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, Paul Holes’ Evil Has a Name and the article ‘An Unbelievable Story of Rape’ by Ken Armstrong and T. Christian Miller. The book Priya Patel refers to when she floats the idea of calling Philip Preston at two a.m. is Mindhunter by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker. In Adam Bowman’s cottage, Rose Riley reads from The River Capture by Mary Costello. The ‘universal truth’ cited in Chapter 5 is from The Letters of William James. In Chapter 12, the words ‘morally indefensible’ are a reference to Janet Malcolm’s famous first line to The Journalist and the Murderer. In Chapter 22, Wayne Farquhar’s Nietzsche quote is from The Gay Science. Bowman’s ‘metaphysical’ hangover is a tender nod to Kingsley Amis.