In recent years, a number of avid readers of the series have suggested that Heller seemed overdue in returning to his Chicago roots. Commercial considerations — giving in to the obvious audience appeal of a world-famous crime (the Huey Long assassination, the Massie rape/murder case) or mystery (the Roswell Incident, the disappearance of Amelia Earhart) — have made it difficult to convince editors to allow Heller a return to his Chicago haunts. I thank my former editor, Joe Pittman, and present editor, Genny Ostertag, for their understanding and support of what might seem to be a departure from a successful format.
For Heller to develop as a character in his historical context, I considered it necessary for him to leave the ’30s and ’40s behind and move into the ’50s and ’60s. Since
This novel serves as an introduction to — and a bridge into — the 1950s and ’60s, should my readers (and the publishing industry) be interested in following my detective and me into these fascinating, suitably crime-filled eras. Thus this novel centers not on a famous crime so much as a famous time in crime, when the TV-fueled shadow of congressional inquiries... not only Kefauver’s beneficial one but McCarthy’s injurious one... fell across the American landscape. The unsolved murder of William Drury — the theory behind the solution of which I, as usual, stand behind — may not have the household-name familiarity of some of Heller’s previous cases; but it remains an historically significant, important, even pivotal crime.
My research assistant George Hagenauer and I began gathering material for this novel in 1985 — and our first hurdle, sixteen years later, was locating the research materials we’d assembled for a book we had both back in ’85 assumed would be happening soon; and our second one was refamiliarizing ourselves with that material, specifically, and with Chicago mob history, in general.
I had the additional chore of renewing my general Chicago chops (George, born and raised in Chicago, has this stuff in his blood). I always thank George for his help, but this time I really should shout that gratitude from a rooftop. (Also, though he hasn’t taken an active role in the research in some time, Mike Gold was one of the original architects of the Heller Chicago/mob history; thanks, Mike.)
Much of what George gathered for
As indicated in the text, the lively journalism of Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer was key to this work; if my portrait of Mortimer was in any way unflattering, chalk that up to his karma... but know that I love reading the Lait/Mortimer
Most of the characters in this book are real-life figures and appear under their actual names. Jackie Payne is a fictional character, however, suggested by Rocco Fischetti’s documented wenching and woman-beating, including throwing a former Miss Chicago out of the Barry Apartments penthouse, leaving her and her bags on the nearest street corner. Fred Rubinski is a fictionalized Barney Ruditsky, a real-life ex-cop turned private eye in Los Angeles. Tim O’Conner is a fictional character, as is lawyer Kurnitz; both have historical counterparts, though I do not mean to impart the sins of the fictional characters upon the real people. O’Conner is designed to suggest that traitors existed on the police force, while Kurnitz suggests the not too radical theory that criminal lawyers are sometimes as much criminal as lawyer.
