Triple Threat

By Margaret Hicks in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 22, 2007 5:53PM

A couple of weeks ago Chicagoist wrote about Sean Chercover’s new book Big City, Bad Blood. Tomorrow night, Chercover and fellow crime writers Marcus Sakey and Teresa Schwegel, will be doing readings from their Chicago-based crime books.

When Chercover and Sakey’s books got reviewed on the same day, Dick Adler from the Trib literally had to toss a coin to decide which review would come first because both were so good (Sakey won). Sakey’s book has been receiving extremely good press (as has Chercover’s). Sakey’s book The Blade Itself is about two teenage friends and the directions they take after a job goes bad; one turns a new leaf and the other goes to jail. Eventually the jail friend comes back to find the new leaf friend who gets blackmailed and coerced back into the crime world.

Teresa Schwegel’s book, Probable Cause has also received rave reviews. Her book is about a rookie cop sent into a jewelry store to do an “initiation” heist. Cop finds jewelry store owner already dead and enters a world where nothing is as it’s supposed to be

Chercover and Sakey are also part of a group of crime writers, including Sara Paretsky and Kevin Guilfoile, called “The Outfit”. We were sifting through their website and had a lot of fun reading their blog entries.

These authors, using their hometowns as backdrops, are bringing Chicago to the forefront of crime fiction, and we couldn’t be happier.

You can see Sean Chercover, Marcus Sakey and Teresa Schwegel Tuesday, Jan. 23 at 7:00 p.m at Anderson’s Bookshop, 123 W. Jefferson, Naperville.