Richard Rose has turned his award-winning screenplay into a dramatic mystery-thriller.
“The Lazarus Conspiracies” was released in early September by Savant Books and Publications.
The 360-page book retails for $16.95, and is available from the publisher at www.savantbooksandpublications.com and on Amazon.com.
Rose, a Wabash College graduate who hails from Kokomo, penned the tale of a maverick Chicago cop who uncovers a conspiracy that people with immense power will stop at nothing, not even murder, to keep secret. Set up as the killer of his only witness, he must find a way to clear himself and expose the conspiracy, which changes the course of history.
“In writing this book I was grateful to have had the assistance of retired Detective John DeBartolo of the Chicago Police Department, Special Victims Unit, who generously helped me with police procedural details,” Rose said. “I also want to thank actress and model Irene Michaels for serving as our beautiful cover model. The novel is an adaptation of a screenplay that was a top 10 finalist in an Illinois/Chicago film screenwriting competition.”
Rose’s passion for creative writing began after a typical small town boyhood in Kokomo. Paper routes, basketball, teen dances and too many greasy French fries were followed by a bachelor’s degree from Wabash College. As an English major, Rose contributed cartoons and satiric articles to the humor magazine and short stories to the more serious literary publication.
After a summer in New Orleans, where he survived by selling Bibles from door to door, he enlisted in the Army. He spent the next three and half years as a German linguist fighting the Cold War with a gun and a dog on the East/West German border.
After his discharge from the service, the Big Apple beckoned. A job didn’t. Some finance courses at the New York Institute of Finance were required before Rose boarded a bus for Chicago and a job as an account executive with a major investment firm.
Rose has resided in Chicago ever since, and his business card now reads: first vice president — investments. During this time he collaborated with an associate, Robert Nussbaum, in writing and announcing the first television coverage of the stock market on WFLD-TV, which won a local Emmy award for news broadcasting in Chicago. He then moved from television to WAIT-AM radio, a major station, where he continued to write and announce spot market reports and 30-second commercials for the firm for next 16 years.
All of this did not leave Rose as much time for creative writing as he would have liked, but he managed to keep his hand in. A number of short stories were published by Mike Shane’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery magazine. Among them, “The Hard Cure,” received an honorable mention in Best Detective Stories of 1972. A mystery novel, “The Satyr Candidate,” made the bookshelves in 1979, and several screenplays were scripted, some in collaboration with his brother, Charles. One screenplay, “Death Angel,” took Rose to Los Angeles in 1985 to participate in its presentation before an audience by actors with the American Film Institute Alumni Association. Some of these screenplays were optioned, one by Don Johnson Productions and another by Graham Henderson, the associate producer of “Hoosiers.” The screenplay on which “The Lazarus Conspiracies” was based was a top 10 finalist in the Illinois/Chicago Screenwriting 2000 Competition.
Rose just completed another novel, “The Gumshoe,” a mystery set in Chicago circa 1947, and a sequel to Lazarus is next on the agenda.
But when he can pry his fingers off the keyboard of his laptop, he usually reaches for a book or a video of a vintage flick. He also finds time at his Indiana lake retreat to hit tennis balls, bike and swim. When the opportunity presents itself, he’s good enough behind a set of drums to sit in with jazz groups — or so his wife, Kay, tells him.
Aside from being the love of his life, she also is his enthusiastic cheerleader and nutritionist. Keeping him healthy is a priority. No more greasy French fries.
