“I know a lot about street gangs, gun running, murder and drug dealing in Chicago,” author David Heinzmann says.
He will tell all when he speaks at a June 12 fund raiser for the Peoria charity Look. It’s My Book! It’s a rare opportunity to hear the latest up-and-coming crime writer talk about fiction and the criminals that inspire it.
The event, at the Mt. Hawley Country Club, 7724 N. Knoxville, is open to the public, and includes dinner and a silent auction. It costs $55 per person, with reservations due by June 5 to Susan Davis, 563 E. High Point Rd, Peoria, 61614.
Heinzmann, 42, has turned his knowledge of Chicago crooks into a novel, A Word to the Wise, which was released last December. A sequel is due out next year, and a third novel is underway now, he said in a telephone interview.
The author learned about Chicago crime the hard way – covering it as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, where he still works. A Word to the Wise involves a missing woman, a casino scandal, and “the mob, the outfit,” he said. Sound familiar? Ripped from the headlines?
So how did Heinzmann pull it off? With a full time job as a journalist, as well as a wife and family, he said he arose every morning at 5:00 a.m. to write for a few hours before reporting to work. Of his wife, he said, “She’s pretty understanding.”
Heinzmann and his wife are rooted in the Peoria area. He grew up in Metamora, and his wife, the former Alicia Zarley, a part-time social worker, is from Peoria Heights. Both went to Spalding Academy, then on to college and careers. They have two children, ages five and one.
Heinzmann’s mother and some of his siblings live in central Illinois.
Heinzmann began writing fiction in college and for a year afterward. Then he put fiction aside to become a journalist. After covering crime in Chicago for a while, he realized he had found “fertile territory,” he said.
His favorite writers include Leo Tolstoy, John Cheever, Walter Percy, Michael Connelly, John LeCarre, Jim Harrison and Elmore Leonard. And yes, he likes the new TV series Justified, based on Elmore Leonard’s fiction.
His second novel, to be released next year, includes a few scenes from Peoria, Creve Coeur and East Peoria, he said, adding he can envision setting a novel in Peoria.
He’s thinking of a new character for the third novel, a Chicago police officer originally from a downstate town “not unlike Metamora where I grew up,” he said.
The Peoria charity Look. It’s My Book! hopes to turn children into readers – and perhaps writers, eventually. It aims to provide six new books each year to every Peoria School District pupil in kindergarten through fourth grade.
The children select the books from a list vetted by Accelerated Reader, a program used by District 150. Research shows that children will read when it’s fun for them, and that their reading skills and school performance improve if there are books in the home.
For the grownups, Heinzmann’s novel A Word to the Wise will be sold at the event. For more information, see the website: