Machine politics is a tough business, filled with people who put far more value on power and money than on honor, friendship, or the lives of those who challenge them. Atop this maelstrom sits Chairman Eamon DeValera Collins, formerly the undisputed boss of the Irish-Catholic Fifteenth Ward and now the man who controls the entire city. In this position, he finds himself surrounded by opportunists, amateurs, criminals, thieves, and cold-blooded killers.

Those he can trust are few and far between, and they are far outnumbered those who would attempt to use their connection to him to...

Machine politics is a tough business, filled with people who put far more value on power and money than on honor, friendship, or the lives of those who challenge them. Atop this maelstrom sits Chairman Eamon DeValera Collins, formerly the undisputed boss of the Irish-Catholic Fifteenth Ward and now the man who controls the entire city. In this position, he finds himself surrounded by opportunists, amateurs, criminals, thieves, and cold-blooded killers.

Those he can trust are few and far between, and they are far outnumbered those who would attempt to use their connection to him to...

In The Chairman: A Novel of Big City Politics, award-winning short fiction writer and journalist Mark M. Quinn offers a character driven plot that shows the thin line between good and evil in a big city ward boss. In a way that few authors can, Quinn offers a convincing portrait of how complicated and mercurial the world of ward politics is and how, by definition, a public official is torn by conflicting motivations. Chairman Eamon DeValera Collins is a practitioner of raw, devious politics. Readers will split their time between condemning and cheering this deliciously nefarious while wholly...