Six of Crows (Six of Crows #1)(146)

Any good heist requires talented specialists, and I’ve been aided by the best:

Steven Klein offered invaluable expertise on how beginners learn magic and pointed me to the work of Eric Mead and Apollo Robbins, gentleman thief. Angela DePace did her best to help me find a real way to knock out a room full of prisoners, but the chloro pellet ended up being a work of pure fabrikation. (Don’t try it at home.) Richard Wheeler advised me on how government buildings and high-security facilities actually keep out ne’er-do-wells. Emily Stein walked me through knife wounds and introduced me to the beautiful phrase ‘apex of the heart’. Conlang king David Peterson tried to nudge me in the right direction and let me be very stubborn about straats. And Hedwig Aerts, my dear friend and Soberumi, thank you for helping me mangle Dutch more thoughtfully.

Marie Lu, Amie Kaufman, Robin LaFevers, Jessica Brody, and Gretchen McNeil keep me laughing

and put up with so much whining. Thanks also to Robin Wasserman, Holly Black, Sarah Rees Brennan, Kelly Link, and Cassandra Clare for plot advice, margaritas, and foisting Teen Wolf upon me. I will never be the same. Anna Carey can be blamed for the Fjerdan guard’s nosebleed. Send her your complaints.

Christine, Sam, Emily, and Ryan, I am so lucky to call you family. And dearest Lulu, you have failed your city.  Thank you for weathering my moods and caring about my little band of thugs.

Many books helped Ketterdam, the Barrel, and my team of crows take shape, but the most essential titles were Sarah Wise’s The Blackest Streets: The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum; The Coffee Trader by David Liss; Amsterdam: A History of the World’s Most Liberal City by Russell Shorto; Criminal Slang: The Vernacular of the Underworld Lingo by Vincent J. Monteleone; David Maurer ’s The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man; and Stealing Rembrandts: The Untold Stories of Notorious Art Heists by Anthony M. Amore and Tom Mashberg.

One more thing: This book wanted to be revised to the sounds of the Black Keys, the Clash, and the Pixies, but it was born in a drafty old schoolhouse with In a Time Lapse playing on a continuous loop, and a bat flapping around the eaves. Many thanks to composer Ludovico Einaudi. And the bat.