Ray Dudgeon
Created By Sean Chercover

Certainly one of 2007's most heralded P.I. debuts was Sean Chercover's Big City, Bad Blood, which introduced RAY DUDGEON, a burnt-out former Chicago reporter turned private eye. But all his considerable investigatve skills don't help much when he agrees to act as a bodyguard for a scared prosecition witness -- a locations manager for a film shooting in Chicago -- who saw something the mob would really prefer he hadn't.

Dudgeon only takes the case because he's been assured by contacts within the mob that they're not really interested in the guy, but soon enough bodies start to drop, and Dudgeon finds himself waist-deep in a scanadal involving blackmail, hookers and organized crime that may reach as far as Washington.

Dudgeon's an eye from the old school, a definite and intentional throwback, partial to booze, tobacco and a fair amount of rude wit. The writing is tough and muscular and the big-shouldered, blue-collar prose style recalls nobody so much as Loren Estleman or Rob Kantner.

And he does his homework. The FBI website has a page that talks about how they work with writers to achieve "an accurate portrayal of the Bureau." They name two non-fiction books and one novel: Sean's Big City, Bad Blood.

Check him out.

THE LATEST

• (January 2008) Paul Guyot has been hired by Fox Studios to adapt Big City, Bad Blood for television. According to Paul, "It's a really cool assignment, and I think could make a killer P.I. series - which the current TV landscape desperately needs. Sean and I are both excited about it... we want to do it basically as a film-noir television series, which hasn't been done in what, thirty plus years. Not period, it would be contemporary Chicago, but directed, shot, edited, scored with a distinct noir flavor." 

NOVELS

• Big City, Bad Blood (2007). Buy this book...Kindle it!
• Trigger City (2008). Buy this book...Kindle it!

SHORT STORIES

• "The Non Compos Mentis Blues" (2007, Chicago Blues)
• "One Serving of Bad Luck" (2008, Killer Year)

RELATED LINKS

• Their Kind of Town
  More Windy City eyes.

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.