Kindle Edition
Category:
Mystery/Suspense
Publisher: Open Books Press
ISBN-10: 0997806249
Type: Fiction
Pages: 284
Copyright: October 20, 2016
ISBN-13: 9780997806243
Price: $15.95 (eBook)
Drugs, Death and Rock and Roll on Chicago's AM Radio Dial
On an early Chicago morning in 1975, a young radio news writer detours from her normal route to investigate a crime scene. Emily is stunned to discover that the victim in an old friend. The police believe Beni Steinart's death is a suicide, but Emily is not convinced. She launches a determined effort to learn how and why her friend died and soon kicks off a brawl between two of Chicago's most popular and powerful men.
Using her guile, her skill and talent and a host of sources, Emily tracks down the truth and eventually generates front page news which ruins one life while it restores another.
Winter in Chicago is an entertaining mystery which also explores the nature of sexism in the 70's and the lamentable death of rock and roll on the AM radio dial.
Excerpt
Max passed a cardboard cup of coffee and a paper sack to the back seat, took the wheel and eased the cab forward.
“Warm you up.”
“Not fast enough. Thanks.”
Emily picked up the first of three newspapers stacked on the seat beside her. By the time Max pulled onto Lake Shore Drive from Belmont, she had scanned all three front pages and read several lead paragraphs in the metro and regional sections. As they motored along, Emily took the faintly warm bagel out of its bag and turned to Kup’s Column. She scanned it, stopping several times to read specific entries, some for work, others for the fun of it. As Max exited the Drive at Michigan Avenue, Emily set aside the previous evening’s late edition of the Daily News and watched as her aggressively handsome city rolled by.
She was looking west down a quiet street when she saw several police vehicles, an ambulance and a coroner’s van.
“Max, take the next right.”
“That ain’t right, Emmy. We always go down the Avenue to Wacker. Same route every day.”
“No. The next right, Max. There’s something going on near Rush Street.”
Max moved the cab into the rightmost lane and slowed to a crawl.
“So, you get out and start schmoozing, we run up against the clock. On time, every time, that’s the deal, right? What’ll I tell Ben, he asks?”
When the opportunity for the morning drive radio news position came to her, Emily and Ben knew she had to accept it. Ben’s only concern was her safety on lonely pre-dawn city streets. They had no car and he wasn’t comfortable, Emily standing on streets alone or riding in busses with whom-ever might be found in them in the wee hours.
So Ben called his Uncle Max, a retired widower who had, to the family’s amazement, filled the empty spaces in his life by becoming a cab driver. Max, childless, was Ben’s permanent best friend. Max always got Ben the birthday presents his parents had nixed, Max called when he landed great seats at Wrigley, Max had corralled a superior caterer for their wedding at a discount so steep that Emily suspected skullduggery. When Ben asked, Max happily promised to be there every morning. Thereafter, at every family gathering Max bragged that he was the reason the news on “that rock sta-tion” was so great every morning.
Emily said, “Max, it could be a story. It’s my job. What if it’s something big, I might actually get on the air? We’ll tell Ben you’re the reason I broke through.
“Besides, I have a watch, you know. I can tell time real well, Max. Big hand, little hand and all. I won’t make us late, I promise.”
Max didn’t say anything. He turned in his seat and gave her a look.
“I won’t stay a second longer than I have to, okay? “
“Don’t make me regret this, Emmy.”
|
