Guest Post – Fire Feud by Thomas Roehlk
Buried secrets rarely stay buried in Fire Feud by Thomas Roehlk. The novel opens with unanswered questions surrounding an unexpected discovery and steadily builds toward a far-reaching reckoning that spans generations.
When skeletal remains are uncovered at a construction site, the case appears at first to be an old and isolated mystery. That assumption vanishes when DNA analysis connects the body to a modern corporation and to the family of attorney Mandy Doucette’s boyfriend. Mandy’s professional obligation to manage the fallout quickly becomes entangled with her personal life.
Her twin sister Reggie, an FBI forensic pathologist, uncovers evidence that links the remains to a crime born in the chaos following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. What emerges is a 140-year-old feud between two influential families—one that never truly ended. As the sisters pursue the truth, they encounter fraud, betrayal, and mounting violence. Powerful individuals are determined to prevent exposure, even if it means killing again to protect their legacies.
Amazon
Guest Post
INSPIRING MOMENT
Every now and then a moment surprises me as an author with the gift of a story’s beginning. Recently I visited the local library in my town in New York and found a wall-sized recreation of an 18th-century town map. Realizing what it was, I examined it to find the original farm where my house now sits. In that space was a small regular information tag containing the words “pirate attack 1783.” Having no idea that pirates were operating in Long Island Sound then, I decided I had to research the issue.
Luckily the librarian archivist was able (enthusiastically) to provide me with a 1939 newspaper article explaining that a local 17-year-old lad was murdered by a band of whaleboat pirates. Unfamiliar with the term I dug into local history for the Revolutionary War period and found a treasure trove of information. Whaleboat pirates were a common phenomenon in that era, as were privateers, and pirates were in their waning moments in the so-called Age of Sail. I had been toying for some time with the idea of writing a pirate story, and now I had been dealt my opening hand.
My dive into the rabbit hole of researching the whaleboat pirates revealed to me the world of privateering, the conflict between revolutionaries in colonial America and the loyalists who clung to King George III, and the incredible role played by the seagoing men of that period. Once I understood how nations and citizens interacted in this time period, I was able to fashion a protagonist and a story. He would spring from the end of the Seven Years War (America called it the French and Indian War) and play a central part in the story of the attack against a coastal family. The murder of the teenager would be the decisive conflict in my story and I could wrap it up with the final departure of the British Royal Navy from the then-occupied Long Island. This was at the sunset of the Revolutionary War.
Then I wondered why I should stop there. A second part of the continuing story could be to take my protagonist to the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico and witness the end of the pirate era. That presented me with a promising volume two of my story, ending after the War of 1812.
Then I wondered why I should stop there. Further research taught me that, in the mid 19th-century, piracy continued in the American Great Lakes. I was able to find history that enabled me to fashion a third part of my story with ancestors of my earlier protagonists roaming those lake waters.
From an innocent visit to the library, my inspiration evolved into a three-volume story of pirates and privateers from the Revolutionary War era through to the Civil War era. Now I just have to write it!
About the Author
Thomas M. Roehlk is a retired corporate attorney from St. Charles, Illinois, whose career spans major international corporations in the defense sector, consumer products, transportation equipment, and financial services. He spent more than 20 years serving as general counsel and chief compliance officer for a public company, bringing deep real-world legal and corporate insight to his fiction. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin and John Marshall Law School, Roehlk also holds a Master in Management degree from Northwestern University. A devoted endurance athlete, he has completed more than 100 marathons and ultramarathons worldwide, as well as ten Ironman triathlons. After 46 years in the Chicago metropolitan area, he and his wife now split their time between Florida and New York.
