The Strangler (39 page)

author’s note

This is a work of fiction. The Boston Strangler cases have been the object of sensationalism and mythmaking almost from the start. This novel makes no attempt to solve them. The same holds true for other aspects of the story. The West End was razed. A bloody mob war was fought. These are matters of historical record. The book in your hands obviously is not that record.

So, the rules of engagement. Where actual historical figures appear in the novel, I have tried to render them as accurately as the evidence permits. Their dialogue and actions, however, are invented. All of the central characters are products of the author’s imagination, with no intended resemblance to actual people. Among those invented characters are all police and prosecutors and all of the victims of the Strangler murders. The timing of actual events, too, has been altered to serve the story.

I am deeply grateful to Captain John Daley (retired) of the Boston Police Department for sharing his memories of the city and the cop life in the 1960s. (That Captain Daley shares his surname with the family at the center of this novel is a coincidence. Again, no similarity is intended.) Another retired policeman, Ed Tobin, generously related stories of the old West End and the Boston PD, some of which appear in the book. I am also indebted to the following books and authors:
The Boston Stranglers
by Susan Kelly,
The Underboss
by Gerard O’Neill and Dick Lehr,
Building a New Boston
by Thomas H. O’Connor, and
Migraine
by Oliver Sacks. Finally, I thank Maura Driscoll for an invaluable suggestion; Kate Miciak and Alice Martell; and above all my wife Susan for her constant support and encouragement.

William Landay

Boston, 2006

about the author

William Landay is the author of the highly acclaimed
Mission Flats,
which was awarded the John Creasey Dagger as the best debut crime novel of 2003. A graduate of Yale University and Boston College Law School, he was an assistant district attorney before turning to writing. He lives in Boston, where he is at work on his next novel of suspense.

THE STRANGLER

A Delacorte Press Book / February 2007

Published by

Bantam Dell

A Division of Random House, Inc.

New York, New York

Excerpts from
CBS Reports: Biography of a Bookie Joint
reprinted by permission of CBS News Archives.

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2007 by William Landay

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Landay, William.

The strangler / William Landay.

p. cm.

1. De Salvo, Albert Henry, 1931—Fiction. 2. Private investigators—Fiction. 3. Serial murderers—Fiction. 4. Boston (Mass.)—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3612.A5477S77 2007

813'.54—dc22                                                                                                                                                         2006023694

www.bantamdell.com

eISBN: 978-0-440-33662-4

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