I consulted hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles while writing The Order, along with dozens of books. I would be remiss if I did not mention the following: Ann Wroe, Pontius Pilate; James Carroll, Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews; Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity; Paula Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity and From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Jesus; John Dominic Crossan, Who Killed Jesus?: Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus; Reza Aslan, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth; Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee; Bart D. Ehrman and Zlatko Pleše, The Apocryphal Gospels: Text and Translations; Robert S. Wistrich, Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred; Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair and Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust; John Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII and A Thief in the Night: Life and Death in the Vatican; Michael Phayer, The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965 and Pius XII, the Holocaust, and the Cold War; Susan Zuccotti, Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy; David I. Kertzer, The Popes Against the Jews: The Vatican’s Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism; Uki Goñi, The Real Odessa: Smuggling the Nazis to Perón’s Argentina; John Follain, City of Secrets: The Truth Behind the Murders at the Vatican; Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi, His Holiness: John Paul II and the History of Our Time; John L. Allen Jr., Conclave: The Politics, Personalities, and Process of the Next Papal Election; Thomas J. Reese, Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church; Frederic J. Baumgartner, Behind Locked Doors: A History of Papal Elections; and Gianluigi Nuzzi, Merchants in the Temple: Inside Pope Francis’s Secret Battle Against Corruption in the Vatican.
We are blessed with family and friends who fill our lives with love and laughter at critical times during the writing year, especially Jeff Zucker, Phil Griffin, Andrew Lack, Noah Oppenheim, Susan St. James and Dick Ebersol, Elsa Walsh and Bob Woodward, Michael Gendler, Ron Meyer, Jane and Burt Bacharach, Stacey and Henry Winkler, Kitty Pilgrim and Maurice Tempelsman, Donna and Michael Bass, Virginia Moseley and Tom Nides, Nancy Dubuc and Michael Kizilbash, Susanna Aaron and Gary Ginsburg, Cindi and Mitchell Berger, Andy Lassner, Marie Brennan and Ernie Pomerantz, and Peggy Noonan.
A heartfelt thanks to the remarkable team at HarperCollins, who managed to publish a book under circumstances no thriller writer could have imagined. I am especially indebted to Brian Murray, Jonathan Burnham, Jennifer Barth, Doug Jones, Leah Wasielewski, Mark Ferguson, Leslie Cohen, Robin Bilardello, Milan Bozic, Frank Albanese, Josh Marwell, David Koral, Leah Carlson-Stanisic, Carolyn Bodkin, Chantal Restivo-Alessi, Julianna Wojcik, Mark Meneses, Sarah Ried, Beth Silfin, Lisa Erickson, and Amy Baker.
Lastly, the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus required my children, Lily and Nicholas, to once again live under the same roof with me as I struggled to complete this novel before its deadline. For that, I am grateful, though I’m not sure they would say the same. Like many young American professionals, they teleworked from their childhood rooms during the lockdown. I enjoyed occasionally dropping in unannounced on their video conference calls. Their presence was a source of great comfort, joy, and inspiration. They, too, are miracles, in more ways than one.