The Blue Circus — Dennis Foley

Fiction. In THE BLUE CIRCUS, award-winning author Dennis Foley offers a wild romp through assorted Chicago neighborhoods, dive bars, shady political deals and more that only an insider can tell. In Foley's story, Danny Lonigan, a disbarred attorney, gets a job as a City of Chicago electrician with the help of his union boss big brother and attempts to earn an honest paycheck and stay clean. But once he befriends mob-connected city worker, Jimmy "the Hat" Scarpelli, Danny Lonigan's world will never be the same. From Roger's Park to Hegewisch, from the mayor's office to tiny Street's and San yard lunch rooms, at times tender, often humorous, and always gritty, THE BLUE CIRCUS offers insight into the politics of the City of Big Shoulders and the Lonigan family as its members fight to survive.

"Chicago speak is such a great language and in THE BLUE CIRCUS, Dennis Foley, a native Southsider, brings that language, the city itself and its rambunctious characters to life. Neighborhood streets, dive bars, and shady city deals waltz across the page, spread out like a deck of cards. But Foley holds some of the cards back and delivers them in a timely fashion, causing the reader to shake his head and marvel. This is a wonderful story about the City that Works, or doesn't work, and a family trying to push forward to survive, as only an insider can tell."--Reviewer's Bookwatch

"This left-jab-and-a-solid-right-hook-to-the-jaw of a novel packs as powerful a literary punch as I've seen in years. That 'stormy, husky, brawling' city that Sandburg described is still with us, and it comes surging to life in these pages. THE BLUE CIRCUS is Southside Chicago down to the very marrow of its bones."--Jack Lynch

"THE BLUE CIRCUS, which is set firmly in the gritty world of Chicago politics and crime...has a sure-footed and clear-eyed sense of this city and its unusual ways and power structures. With snappy dialog and compelling characters, it is part family saga and part mystery and wholly satisfying."--Rick Kogan, Chicago Tribune

"If you want to really get to know the unique characters of a unique city--read THE BLUE CIRCUS. It's based on the real Chicago that only a former city worker like Dennis Foley understands."--Bob Sirott, Chicago broadcast legend