Thursday, January 15, 2009

Is it Fiction?

Blago's impeachment prosecutor, the lawyer-novelist, gets some press in the ABA Journal:

Ellis was principal author of the report by an Illinois legislative panel that recommended Blagojevich’s impeachment. But his legal writing is considerably broader than that.

Ellis has also authored five novels and is about to publish a sixth. The five published novels are all murder mysteries, and two feature characters related to fictional governors, according to a summary of the books on Ellis’ website. One novel features the daughter of a governor with political ambitions. Another chronicles the chief aide to a governor and a hidden scandal.

"People always ask me, 'What made you start writing?' " Ellis writes on his website. "The truth is, I was a writer before I was a lawyer. When I was in fourth grade, I entered a school district-wide writing contest. I wrote a story called 'The Loch Ness Mystery' about two boys who solved a crime in Scotland. Guess what? It won the contest. Guess what else? In hindsight, I realized that every entry won."

And his wife works for AG Lisa Madigan. Next book? Daughter of a house speaker with political ambitions for governor maybe. And gee, how did he ever come up with the name of Tony Rezko for one of his characters. But maybe this is all getting too close for comfort--Ellis might should go back to writing about Nessie. Crime seems to pay, though, in Illinois.

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