32 Cadillacs

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I offer the usual disclaimer: the characters, events, and places in this novel are totally fictional, products of the author’s lively imagination. Now, having said that:

Once upon a time a band of Gypsies really did rip off thirty-two cars from a large San Francisco Bay Area bank in a single day. During the next months David Kikkert & Associates, hired to recover them, grabbed twenty-nine of the thirty-two all over the U.S.A. (including Hawaii) and in Mexico.

Here’s where, in 32 Cadillacs, the currency of truth becomes funny money, for not every repo in the novel took place while tracking down these Gypsies during a twenty-six-day time frame. Some were “stretched” a bit, others were from elsewhere in my dozen years as a legal car thief, but all really happened — even Lake Shore Drive in Chicago and the Lovellis in Nebraska.

Although my stance toward the rom during my detective career was strictly adversarial, my Gypsy lore in 32 Cadillacs is as honest as research and experience can make it, as are their scams, cons, and grifts. And I have tried to make my fictional Gypsies realistic — and fun — without sentimentalizing them. If you sentimentalize Gypsies, you run the risk of ending up with a car that won’t run, a roof that won’t stop the rain, or a driveway that comes up on the sole of your shoe.

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