Review
In A Long Way from Clare, a young lawyer's quest to follow in his brother's footsteps takes him on a perilous journey that leads to a dark and deadly revelation. Deftly written and smartly suspenseful, Robert Smith transports you back in time to the dawn of political corruption in a city unwilling to give up its secrets.--Teresa Basile, Publisher, New Leaf Books
From the Author
So what is A Long Way from Clare anyway? When talking to my readers, either of them, I like to describe it as a historical fiction, wrapped in history and dipped generously in a dish of off-beat romance. You might call it a logical stop at the intersection my life's experiences and interests. As a Chicago lawyer with a background in criminal defense, I opted initially to write two legal thrillers. That was in the early 2000s, just before the dawn of self-publishing and Amazon. I had a good working knowledge of courts and criminals and crooked cops, so I could concentrate on learning something about this ageless craft of the written word. Writing contemporary legal thrillers was okay, but the process just never tickled my twine before life and responsibility drove me back into the courtroom.
I emerged a number of years later into a completely transformed and unrecognizable publishing industry with my expectations tempered but my mission at last defined. I'd never really loved being a lawyer, not like I loved writing. On my sabbatical, I'd worked out a few guideline truths to govern my writing going forward. What I'd really loved all along was American history and tales of its arcane, ordinary figures, trapped in time to excel on their own device and conscience. Learning about forgotten, misrepresented or long-suppressed historical events had taught me that nothing is new in the light of history. One only needs to look. I prefer subjects antithetical to U.S. History books that shed light on or are in some way relevant to contemporary political or social issues.
From there, I never looked back. I wrote The Sakhalin Collection, a novel chronicling the Japanese abduction of a million Korean citizens from their homeland and the story of their continued suffering under Soviet rule on Sakhalin Island until near the end of the Twentieth Century. The novel tracks the fictional effort of two ordinary people, an American Airman and an outcast and beautiful Korean refugee to expose this crime against humanity to the world. From there, Running with Cannibals, released in 2022, was a natural progression, the story of four simple people caught in the cruelty and death of the Philippine-American War, at the height of America's colonialist ambitions in the early Twentieth Century.
A Long Way from Clare combines the historic tensions and hopeless odds of Cannibals and Sakhalin with the compelling history of Turn-of-the-Century Chicago, following the experiences of Chicago's Irish immigrants and their ascent from rejection and poverty to political prominence and a sense of belonging.
A young Irishman arrives in Chicago in 1903 to visit his brother but finds himself on a quest to peel away secrets and rediscover a dead sibling he idolized but never really knew, hoping in the process to learn the true meaning of brotherhood-but the secrets may kill him first.
His quest reveals an Irish Republican plot to assassinate a visiting British Royal and draws him into an alliance with two women, a mesmerizing Jewish widow and a struggling young Irishwoman, his brother's former mistress. The women will teach him existential truths of life and love, guiding him along his path, each in her own way. But the brother he finds may not be the brother he remembers. A Long Way from Clare is a candid and deeply researched story of Chicago's Nineteenth Century immigrants and one man's struggle with the relationship between bigotry and justice in an unforgiving city where your mistakes can kill you if your good deeds don't kill you first. This story was inspired by the life and alleged suicide (1914) of my wife's grandfather, a Chicago Policeman, Irish immigrant, and bar room Irish Republican. The family believes this version. Personally, I think he was drunk on duty and fell into the Chicago River.
I am working on another in the series, based on the legendary Chicago Newsboys and set during the Wilsonian policy of national censorship and repression against the anti-war movement prior to WWI. This time period in Chicago history is fertile ground for great storytelling and social commentary. My target audience includes readers of crime thrillers and mysteries, as well as historical fiction. The resulting writing style is a fusion of my background and interests and has roots in the work of authors like Graham Greene, Len Deighton and Joseph Conrad. My stuff is non-conforming, directed to a general audience and always includes a love story. I see A Long Way from Clare as a progression in my journey. I hope you enjoy it.
About the Author
Bob was raised in Chicago, enlisting in the Air Force in 1968. Following four years service as a Russian Linguist in Security Service Command, a branch of the NSA, Bob attended DePaul University and The John Marshall Law School. With over thirty years experience as a criminal defense lawyer in Chicago, Bob brings a lifetime of understanding and experience to his novels. The author lives in the Chicago area.
