Robert W Smith’s new novel is available today!
Assassination, espionage, war, and vigilante violence. Welcome to Chicago in 1917.
Within this cauldron of intrigue and deceit, live nearly half a million Irish and German American immigrants, among them Irish-born lawyer Conor Dolan and his wife Maureen. The Dolans are among thousands of immigrants marked as “hyphenated Americans,” their reluctance to support the war cry branding them “enemy aliens.”
When one of the legendary Chicago Newsboys takes a lethal bullet from a German Luger during a warehouse break-in, his mysterious companion escapes, and Conor is determined to find the killer. He discovers instead a link between the burglary and the murder of a prominent Chicago arms broker with ties to the Allied powers and possibly the mob. Despite warnings from a powerful group of government-backed vigilantes and a suspicious lack of cooperation from the police, Conor presses on at his own peril to root out the boy’s killer.
Was it a German agent? An Allied agent? The mob? Or maybe even the police themselves by some deceitful plan? The closer he gets to the answer, the greater the danger to those he loves.
In To Pledge Allegiance: A WWI Windy City Novel by Robert W. Smith, Conor Dolon, a defense lawyer, investigates the suspicious death of his friend, and ends up unearthing horrifying family secrets as well as deeply ingrained espionage activities…
The events of World War I in Europe in 1917 serve as the backdrop, instilling this story with real historical elements such as the Department of Justice approving a group of criminals and even giving them badges to carry out their violence.
An immigrant family of well-known Irish Republicans—the Clan-na-Gael—has also been well depicted. The author carefully shows the role that many organizations played in Chicago, a city which has been at the epicenter of powerful movements opposing the nation’s war policy. Readers fascinated with history and World War politics will appreciate the richness of material in this book, including details on the largest-ever patriotic group’s endeavor, fully backed by the US government, to suppress opposition and foster nationalism.
Robert W. Smith’s book To Pledge Allegiance: A WWI Windy City Novel is a story propelled by likable characters who remain true to their era.
It weaves action, romance, mistrust, familial insecurities, and war-related themes into a narrative that will hold the reader’s attention from beginning to end. An engaging, judicious, and well-written work!