Patrick " Pat" Butler (1940- 2023) was a Chicago journalist, historian, and storyteller whose career spanned more than five decades. He began reporting for the Lerner Newspapers of Chicago and its suburbs in 1967 and eventually became managing editor of a chain of fifty-four newspapers with a combined circulation of three hundred thousand. Butler continued writing for Inside Publications and the Gazette Chicago until his death. The author of several books on the history of Chicago's North Side, he brought the same deep research and global curiosity to his work on The Assassins.