Acknowledgments

This book makes liberal use of real history to tell its tale, and this time I am therefore indebted not only to the usual and indispensible support network without which no writer could function, but also to a not inconsiderable number of people who one way or another made my distorting of historical truth possible:

The staff at the National Library of Scotland and at the Edinburgh City Archives, who were unfailingly helpful and efficient.

Jim McGowan, who has never heard of me, but whose unpublished thesis on Edinburgh’s police force in the first quarter of the nineteenth century was utterly fascinating and tremendously helpful.

Ewen, for the very timely provision of some audio drama recordings that really hit the spot, inspiration-wise.

Thanks, as ever, to the fine Orbit crew, as helpful a bunch of publishing folk as a writer could wish to be working with. In particular, thanks to Tim Holman for his support and assistance not just with this book—which were considerable—but all the way back to the beginning.

Thanks to Tina, my agent, for her help and support.

Thanks to my parents, for their encouragement from the first time I ever tried to write.

And to Fleur, for everything.