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Acknowledgements

I wish to express my sincere thanks:

To Jana und Jozef Kuciak, who lost their son, invited me into their house and took a lot of time to talk, and to the brother, Jozef Kuciak Jr, who did the same. To Marek Vagovič, head of the investigative team at the news website aktuality.sk, who was Ján Kuciak’s manager there, nurtured him and together with colleagues wrote the book “Umlčaní” (“Silenced”) in memory of Kuciak. To Árpád Soltész, author, commentator and expert on the Slovak underworld and its connections to the very top. To Zuzana Petková, who was a friend of Kuciak’s, herself worked as an investigative journalist and now leads the foundation “Zastavme korupciu” (“Let us stop corruption”). To Matthias Settele, head of Slovakia’s largest private television station “Markíza” and expat Austrian in Bratislava with a lot of insight. To Matúš Kostolný, editor-in-chief of the portal Denník N and longtime observer of the Slovak political scene. To the courageous and vigilant journalists of Slovakia, who with their tireless research spare no effort to ensure that justice is not just an empty word and that Ján Kuciak’s death does not go unpunished. To Iveta Radičová, the former prime minister of Slovakia, who in a long conversation gave me a glimpse behind the curtains of politics. To all those who, for good reasons, remain unnamed. To my valued colleague on the investigative team at Addendum, Sebastian Reinhart, who was an early and critical reader of the book and who, with his razor-sharp mind, debated the murder mystery with me countless times. To Lucia Marjanović and Stephan Frank, managing editors and proofreaders, whose patience was often tested by the numerous twists and turns in the plot of this case. And to the entire team of the investigative platform Addendum, which made this book possible, encouraged me to write it and did their utmost to help me.

About the author

Christoph Lehermayr, born in 1979, studied political science and Slavic studies in Vienna and Prague. He has been working as an investigative journalist at the research platform Addendum since 2019. Prior to that, he was the head of the international-news department at the current-affairs magazine News. He speaks Czech, reads and understands Slovak and is regarded as an expert on the countries of central and eastern Europe. Since the murder of the investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée, he has devoted himself intensively to the case, carried out dozens of interviews, examined documents and followed the trial of the alleged perpetrators and instigators.