If you have lived in Chicago for any length of time, you know that the city's politicians are crooked and corrupt. But not everyone appreciates the longevity of that state, that the corruption and political shenanigans predate the arrival of Richard J. Daley on the scene.
THE KING OF THE IRISH will take you back to the time when police officers were hired based on their connections to significant power brokers, where a man got a job if he knew someone.
Often, those same men were hired based on their ability to get out the vote for their clout's party, and representatives of the opposition would do all they could to undermine the other side. Back in 1889, where the novel opens, there were two parties in Chicago, each one battling for supremacy.
Look back a few years in Chicago and you'll see the "Hired Truck Scandal" reported in the local newspapers. It was just another example of corruption and greed, with friends of the Mayor (Richard M., son of Richard J.) siphoning money out of the public trough.
And who took the fall? Who went to jail? The middle management, if you will. The protective layer that did the bidding of the untouchables, the men who performed the dirty work. The men who didn't want Nobody nobody sent because only your clout could send you and he was never a Nobody.
In Chicago in 1889, so too did the high and mighty have a protective layer below them, loyal followers who owed those leaders their jobs and their livelihoods. Chicago police detective Daniel Coughlin was one of those trusted lieutenants in a patronage army, and when his clout's opponents sought to topple power-broker Alexander Sullivan, they targeted Daniel Coughlin.
THE KING OF THE IRISH is a fictional telling of what was called the crime of the century at the time. It is told from Daniel Coughlin's point of view, the version that never made it to the pages of the newspapers in a time of yellow journalism and virulent anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic sentiments.
It is the story of a man in the wrong place at the wrong time, and how he endures when the odds are stacked against him and his very life depends on the same corrupt political system that landed him on Murderer's Row.
Watch this blog for news on free book giveaways coming in early March.
No comments:
Post a Comment