Winter in Chicago

Drugs, death and rock and roll on Chicago’s AM radio dial...

Before dawn in January, 1975, Emily detours from her normal route to work in the newsroom of Chicago’s top pop rock station to investigate a crime scene. The police believe the body on the street is a suicide. Emily is stunned to discover that the dead woman is a dear friend since high school. Unable to fathom why Beni Steinart would take her own life, Emily begins an investigation that leads to a trunk-load of cocaine, Federal narcotics charges, abuse of power and a perplexing mystery - suicide or murder?

Emily’s reporting triggers an explosive battle between two men who tower over their city. Cary Chase is Chicago’s most prominent bachelor, a wealthy entrepreneur whose mansion is the epicenter of Chicago’s elite society. United States Attorney Tommy ＂Tommy Terrific＂ Jameson is ambitiously determined to rid his city of corruption on his way up to the Governor’s office and perhaps even higher.

Drawing on an eclectic roster of news sources and WEL colleagues and her own considerable talent and determination, Emily uncovers the full story of her friend’s death in a remarkable confrontation which produces front page headlines and restores one life as it ruins another.

David M. Hamlin was born in Washington, D.C., raised in Bethesda, Maryland and educated in Montgomery County public schools. He is a former VISTA volunteer and a cum laude graduate of Nasson College in Maine. He has enjoyed two careers, first as an executive with the American Civil Liberties Union and then as a partner in a successful Los Angles public relations and marketing agency which he co-founded with his wife, Sydney Weisman. He lives, writes and plays tennis in Palm Springs, California.

David M. Hamlin is the author of a first-hand account of one of the most controversial free speech cases of the twentieth century, The Nazi/Skokie Conflict (Beacon Press, 1980). In 2009, he wrote Los Angeles’s Original Farmers Market (Arcadia Press, photos curated by Brett Arena). He has also written countless opinion page commentaries, freelance news and professional journal articles, a political satire column and the box copy for the Hot Wheels(TM) 40th Anniversary Edition Gilmore Oil White 3000 Truck and Agajanian Special midget racer.