Author: John Good (Local Retired Police Officer)

Title: Blood on the Badge

Date: December 4, 2021

Day: Saturday

Time: 2:00 - 4:00 PM

Author John Good imagined Blood on the Badge after forty years in the law enforcement profession. Mr. Good has extensive training as a Juvenile Officer, Field Training Officer, Bicycle Officer and School Resource Officer. Perfect for readers of crime fiction and cop stories who were also fans of Joseph Wambaugh. Blood on the Badge is a page-turner from its first gunshot to the last. Mr. Good was interviewed by Rick Kogan on his Sunday evening program on WGN Radio 720.

Authors Discussion and Signing

Michael A. Black for A.W. Hart Gunslinger: Killer's Gamble and Killer's Requiem

George Tackes for Short Stories In Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective Volume 7: The Case of No Interest and The Accidental Death Of Henry Lindfield

Date: October 10, 2021

Day: Sunday

Time: 2:00PM

Despite being relentlessly pursued by Pinkerton detectives and an assortment of hired killers, Connor Mack and his twin sister, Abby, are determined to see things through with their mentor, gunslinger River Hicks.

The quest to clear Hicks of a false murder charge requires them to find and confront the rich, powerful foe who seems bent on destroying them. Their journey takes an unexpected turn after they're involved in a bloody confrontation between a bounty hunter and a group of vicious outlaws. Ultimately, this leads them to the town of Land's End where a strange set of circumstances embroil them in a heavyweight boxing match, a high-stakes poker tournament, and much more. Unbeknownst to Connor and Abby, their three malevolent brothers have also been recruited to work against them. All roads lead to Land's End for a showdown that will take place not only in the boxing ring and the gaming tables, but in the dusty street as well.

For every step on their long journey of discovery, Connor Mack, his twin sister, Abby, and gunslinger River Hicks, have faced brutal killers, scheming Pinkerton detectives, and corruption at every corner. Having cheated death more times than they'd like to count, the quest for the twin's mysterious birthright is finally heading for a deadly showdown with the killer who ordered the execution.

Hicks, who is also seeking to clear his name, has promised to reveal the truths he's been harboring since he rescued Connor and Abby from their violent existence on the Mack farm. But first they must face a new collection of killers that are gathering - including a ruthless gunman for hire and a fanatical mercenary with his horde of fervent disciples.

As the long-buried secrets of the past suddenly rise to the surface like a cauldron of evil boiling over, a fearsome battle signals the death knell of a killer's requiem...

A young boy's dog is cruelly slain. A British agent is murdered aboard a train and the daughter of a distinguished military officer commits suicide. These are just three of the five mysteries contained in this volume of new Sherlock Holmes adventures as offered by writers I.A. Watson, R.A. Jones, George Tackes and Jonathan Casey. Each offers the brilliant Holmes and his ever loyal companion, Dr. Watson, unique and exotic puzzles that will test their skills and bring them face to face with murder most foul.

Authors Discussion & Sigining:

James Elsener for Reflections of Valour and The Last Road Trip

Rusell Fee for A Dangerous Remedy: (#1) A Sheriff Matt Callahan Mystery,  A Dangerous Identity: (#2) A Sheriff Matt Callahan Mystery, and  A Dangerous Season: (#3) A Sheriff Matt Callahan Mystery

Date: October 15, 2021

Day: Friday

Time: 5:30 to 9:00 PM

About James Elsener

James Elsener was born in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up in southern Michigan. After high school he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps serving for four and half years on active duty including a tour in Vietnam as a radio operator in an artillery unit. After graduation from Western Michigan University he got his first journalism job as a reporter with the City News Bureau of Chicago and later worked for the Chicago Tribune. He spent 47 years in the newspaper industry as a reporter, columnist, editor, association executive, advertising sales representative and owner/publisher. He is now writing books and living with his wife Patricia in River Forest, Illinois. In his spare time, he plays handball competing in many regional and national tournaments.

Brenda Walker passes slowly by Panel 15-E of "The Wall," the memorial to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice during the Vietnam War. There, etched into the black granite, she spots the name of her college sweetheart, "John Briggs." She had never known his fate until now.  

Stub Rowe’s mediocre major league baseball career ended with a ground out to the second baseman. He considered that to be the wimpiest out in baseball. He had never been a star, but he was considered steady and reliable. Some team always needed a third baseman with a little pop in his bat…until the years ran out on him. Now it was time to consider what to do with the rest of his life. 

About Russell Fee

Russ Fee was born in Indiana but grew up in Washington D.C. and London.  After graduating from the College of William and Mary, he served in the army as an intelligence officer and then became a trial lawyer in Chicago, litigating civil rights and civil liberties cases, before becoming a teacher.  A Dangerous Season is Russ’s fourth novel and the third book in his Sheriff Matt Callahan Mystery Series.  Kirkus Reviews described the first book in the series, A Dangerous Remedy, as “A well-written mystery about a unique community imbued with a palpable sense of place . . . well-plotted and highly enjoyable.”  The second book in the series, A Dangerous Identity, won the Chicago Writers Association’s Book of the Year Award.  Russ and his wife are dual citizens of the United States and Ireland.  They now live in the Upper Midwest, which they love.

After a horrific mutilation renders former Chicago police detective Matt Callahan a recluse, he is given a second chance at life as sheriff of tiny Nicolet County in the Northwoods of Michigan. Idyllic, peaceful, and sparsely populated, the island community hides a web of secrets Callahan and his young female deputy must uncover before a great city an ocean away explodes in violence and is thrown back into a half century of carnage. Irish paramilitaries, the British Royal Family, a century-old Irish enclave in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the long reach of modern terrorism, and the incendiary effect of a single spark on the lasting peace of a nation combine to make a volatile brew in this engrossing Midwest mystery.

WINNER OF THE CHICAGO WRITERS ASSOCIATION BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD (2019) In this award-winning mystery/thriller, the gruesome death of a young woman pulls Sheriff Matt Callahan into a shifting universe where nothing is as it appears. As his island faces the threat of environmental ruin from the rupture of an oil pipeline under the waters of Lake Michigan and secret drilling along its shores, an unseen and relentless force poses a greater peril to the people of the island and beyond. When Callahan attempts to navigate the maze of deception that conceals those responsible for the danger, he unwittingly draws the innocent into a lethal trap and must confront his greatest fear as he is pushed to his physical and emotional limits.

Title: Murder Most Opulent

Author: Kathleen Anne Fleming

Date: October 3, 2021

Day: Sunday

Time: 2:00 PM

Description

Darkness and light. A historical mystery which examines the gray line in the middle of social stratification, the proverbial quest for acquisition and power in search of fulfillment, at the expense of the soul. Evil comes in many forms. In this mystery, Colette Browning has the ability to time-travel, and thus discovers secrets in the past in real time, even taking along a passenger or two on her journey. In this way she is enlightened further to the struggles of women, class and human empathy.

Image Properties

Title: Call Me Z: A Novel of Murder, Corruption & Greed

Authors: Paul Teodo and Tom Myers

Date: August 22, 2021

Day: Sunday

Time: 2:00 PM

Description

Fired from a boutique suburban medical center, senior executive Slavoj Zlobec is blackmailed by his AA sponsor, Father Tommy Monahan, into returning to south side Chicago to save a run-down, struggling hospital. Z, a sixty-year-old in-and-out alcoholic with a disharmonious name and a bucketful of guilt, is no match for the power and influence of Chicago politics. His sole involvement with the legal system was a year spent surviving predatory guards in a juvenile detention center after nearly killing the boy who hung his dog. Nazis, gangbangers, amputees and cooks inhabit this fast-paced tale of greed and murder set during the week of the 2008 Presidential election. CALL ME Z pays tribute to a real-life group of stubborn Eastern European nuns, who refused to abandon the disenfranchised poor their inner-city hospital serves.

The Authors

Paul Teodo is a retired healthcare exec and author. He is a native Chicagoan and noted storyteller. His first book PASTAMAN received strong reviews & his second book Call Me Z.

Tom Myers is a retired Navy Commander who served at sea in numerous ships and in Iraq with the Multi-National Force.

Title: Murder in the Summer of Love

Author: Michael Raleigh

Date: June 17, 2021

Day: Thursday

Time: 6:00 PM

In the summer of 1967, a Florida bookie is found dead in a Chicago motel, a businessman is missing along with a satchel of money, and Private Eye Harry Strummer who we met in Peerless Detective is in the middle of it.

Michael Raleigh is a lifelong Chicagoan and the author of several novels, including the  The Conjurers Boy. He grew up on the north side of Chicago, spending the first 11 years in the neighborhood around old Riverview amusement park, a neighborhood that is the setting for his novel In the Castle of the Flynns.. Also, he has written the Paul Whelan mystery series set in the same area of the city. Murder in the Summer of Love is the second in his new Private Detective Harry Strummer novels after Peerless Detective.also set in Chicago around Wrigley Field and Lake Michigan.

Michael attended DePaul University, where he received a bachelor of arts degree, majoring in English literature, with a minor in American history. He did his graduate work at Michigan State University, where he received a Master’s in English, specializing in Medieval Literature. It was at MSU that he also received training as a teacher of English as a Second Language. . Eventually he went to work for the City of Chicago’s Model Cities Program, an anti-poverty program, doing extensive field work in impoverished neighborhoods. He went back into teaching in 1979, and in 1980 took a position at Truman College in Chicago where, for twenty-eight years he taught English as a Second Language, Freshman composition, Literature, and the History of Chicago (a subject which, over the years, has become a favorite of his and the source of several of his library programs). 

Michael has been a bank teller, a bartender, a grant writer for the Salvation Army, an office manager, a microfiche technician, and a punch press operator. He currently teaches in the Freshman Writing Program at DePaul University, and he writes.

He has been married for over 31 years to his wife Katherine, and they have three children.

Author: Michael A. Black

Titles: A Continuation of  Army Ranger Steve Wolf Series: Devil’s Dance #1, Devil’s Fancy #2, Devil’s Brigade #3, and Devil’s Advocate #4

Date: June 13, 2021

Day: Sunday

Time: 2:00PM