The Thieves of Manhattan (29 page)

My utmost thanks to Jerome Kramer for proposing a challenge, without which this book would not have been written. Thanks also to Cindy Spiegel and Marly Rusoff for their continued support. Thanks to Christopher Cartmill, Bill DeMerritt, David Engel, Barbara Hammond, Virginia Lowery, Hemmendy Nelson, and Andrew Oswald for participating in the first reading of
The Thieves of Manhattan
. And thanks for many and various reasons to Masako and Rich Aloia, Beth Blickers, Maria Braeckel, Jennifer Gilmore, Richard Green, Mary Herczog, Hana Landes, Bradley Langer, Esther Langer, Kazoo, Val and Claudia Paraskiv, Mihai Radelescu, Wendy Salinger, Trixie the cat, and the staff of the Hungarian Pastry Shop and Café. Thanks always to Beate Sissenich, and to Nora and Solveig Langer Sissenich, the latter of whom entered the world less than three hours after the final draft of this book was completed. And, finally, thanks to all the fake memoirists, fictional poets, literary forgers, and hoaxers who have provided such great inspiration.

A
DAM
L
ANGER
is the author of the novels
Crossing California, The Washington Story
, and
Ellington Boulevard
, and the memoir
My Father’s Bonus March
. He lives in New York City with his wife, Beate; his daughters, Nora and Solveig; and his dog, Kazoo. Depending on your definition, this is either his fourth novel or his second memoir.

The Thieves of Manhattan
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A Spiegel & Grau Trade Paperback Original

Copyright © 2010 by Adam Langer

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

S
PIEGEL
& G
RAU
and Design is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Langer, Adam.
The thieves of Manhattan: a novel / by Adam Langer.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-1-58836-957-4
1. Authors—Fiction. 2. Manuscripts—Fiction. 3. Theft—Fiction. 4. Swindlers and swindling—Fiction. 5. Publishers and publishing—Fiction. 6. Manhattan (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3612.A57T47 2010
813′.6—dc22 2009040011

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