Kevin Baker is the author of five novels, most recently The Big Crowd (Houghton Mifflin, 2013), set mainly in postwar New York and based closely on the greatest unsolved murder in mob history. He is currently at work on a history of New York City baseball for Pantheon. His previous works include the “City of Fire” trilogy set in New York’s past: Dreamland, Strivers Row, and Paradise Alley, which was a New York Times bestseller and the winner of the American Book Award.   He is also the author or co-author of a contemporary novel, a graphic novel, two works of American history, and an as-told-to memoir by Reggie Jackson, Becoming Mr. October. Baker is a contributing editor at Harper’s magazine, a frequent contributor to The New York Times, The New York Daily News and many other periodicals, and a member of the board of the Society of American Historians. He was born in New Jersey, grew up in Massachusetts, graduated from Columbia University, and lives on the Upper West Side of New York with his wife, Ellen, and their cat, Maisie.