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Dirty Proof
If there’s one thing Chicago private eye Frank Dragovic wants, it’s to believe his clients are telling the truth. With this one, he just can’t tell. Did typesetter Suzanne Quering really push her lover into the web presses at the Chicago Truth Examiner , as the police suspect she did? Or is she innocent, as she claims to Frank. And if she’s innocent, what was her scarf doing alongside the body? And, really — why does she always seem to leave important pieces of information out of her story? With the police eager to prove murder, can Frank clear his stubborn red-haired client — or will the memory of her flaming hair haunt him long after she’s locked way?
- GenresMystery
282 pages, Paperback
First published June 11, 2011
3 people are currently reading
13 people want to read
About the author
Barbara Gregorich
206 books23 followersBarbara Gregorich, who writes fiction and nonfiction for adults and for children, has in her writing career deliberately moved from one genre to another, writing about the things important in life — baseball, mystery, and social justice. Her seminal Women at Play: The Story of Women in Baseball won the SABR-MacMillan Award and laid the groundwork for other books on the subject. For her research and writings on women in baseball, Barbara Gregorich received the 2024 SABR Dorothy Seymour Mills Lifetime Achievement Award.
A frequent presenter at Illinois libraries, Gregorich was appointed a 2013 Roads Scholar by the Illinois Arts Council. In 2021 City of Light published The F Words, whose story of ICE persecution of immigrants focuses on the resilience of working class teens. Exit Velocity features a young working class woman who encounters discrimination in the workplace and assault on the streets. As she fights for her rights, she is aided by a parrot from another planet.
For more information about Barbara and her books, visit her blog, Much to Write About, available on GoodReads.
A frequent presenter at Illinois libraries, Gregorich was appointed a 2013 Roads Scholar by the Illinois Arts Council. In 2021 City of Light published The F Words, whose story of ICE persecution of immigrants focuses on the resilience of working class teens. Exit Velocity features a young working class woman who encounters discrimination in the workplace and assault on the streets. As she fights for her rights, she is aided by a parrot from another planet.
For more information about Barbara and her books, visit her blog, Much to Write About, available on GoodReads.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 11, 2017
a well written whodunit
Dirty Proof is a great well written whodunit! A book you couldn't put down even if you wanted to. With its well developed and defined characters. Including the main detective, Frank Dragovic, his quirky side involves two dominating personality that are dubbed his Gallant and Goofus, as well as the wise cracking, PI that has a soft spot for helping women. He is asked by Suzanne Quering to look into the death of her former lover, the executive at the newspaper she works for which she afraid the police will pin it all on her. She was there the night he was killed and has the skills to push him of the catwalks above the presses, that's how he's killed an newspaper executive mangled by the presses. Set in a time when people still made newspapers thought the presses. Frank decides to take the case even thought there is a substantial amount of evidence that ties Suzanne to the crime, and investigates in classic detective fashion. I'm going to leave it there's so that future readers can read the rest of the plots. But as far as a detective story goes this is definitely one that will keep you at the edge of seats and the clues will have you dying to figure out who did it.
Dirty Proof is a great well written whodunit! A book you couldn't put down even if you wanted to. With its well developed and defined characters. Including the main detective, Frank Dragovic, his quirky side involves two dominating personality that are dubbed his Gallant and Goofus, as well as the wise cracking, PI that has a soft spot for helping women. He is asked by Suzanne Quering to look into the death of her former lover, the executive at the newspaper she works for which she afraid the police will pin it all on her. She was there the night he was killed and has the skills to push him of the catwalks above the presses, that's how he's killed an newspaper executive mangled by the presses. Set in a time when people still made newspapers thought the presses. Frank decides to take the case even thought there is a substantial amount of evidence that ties Suzanne to the crime, and investigates in classic detective fashion. I'm going to leave it there's so that future readers can read the rest of the plots. But as far as a detective story goes this is definitely one that will keep you at the edge of seats and the clues will have you dying to figure out who did it.
February 18, 2015
Dirty Proof is the first mystery I wrote, and I was inspired to write it both because I’m a life-long mystery fan and because, at the time, I was working as a typesetter at the Chicago Tribune and was so taken by the setting that I vowed to write a mystery featuring it.
In order to write the story I created my detective, Frank Dragovic, from Chicago’s south side Croatian community. Next, I created the crime and the murder victim, Ralph Blasingame, and the newspaper he worked for, The Chicago Truth-Examiner. After that I created Frank’s client, Suzanne Quering, who is suspected of murdering Blasingame. Thus, with a detective, a client, and a crime, I proceeded with the story.
Along the way I had to create more characters, some of them suspects and some of them not. Some of them major characters, some of them minor. All of them in the newspaper trade, but each with a different job and thus a different outlook on matters. Creating the characters, their motives, and their work environment was fun for me, and I suspect that all novelists enjoy this part of writing the book.
What was difficult for me was deciding on who the murderer was. I rewrote the novel three times, and each time I changed the murderer and the motive. (This wasn’t the case when I wrote the sequel, Sound Proof — I knew from the beginning who the murderer was, and that never changed.)
Over the years, people have told me that what they remember most about Dirty Proof is the crime, the newspaper setting, and the ending. I like knowing that what inspired me to write the novel — the setting and the crime — is what resonates with readers.
In order to write the story I created my detective, Frank Dragovic, from Chicago’s south side Croatian community. Next, I created the crime and the murder victim, Ralph Blasingame, and the newspaper he worked for, The Chicago Truth-Examiner. After that I created Frank’s client, Suzanne Quering, who is suspected of murdering Blasingame. Thus, with a detective, a client, and a crime, I proceeded with the story.
Along the way I had to create more characters, some of them suspects and some of them not. Some of them major characters, some of them minor. All of them in the newspaper trade, but each with a different job and thus a different outlook on matters. Creating the characters, their motives, and their work environment was fun for me, and I suspect that all novelists enjoy this part of writing the book.
What was difficult for me was deciding on who the murderer was. I rewrote the novel three times, and each time I changed the murderer and the motive. (This wasn’t the case when I wrote the sequel, Sound Proof — I knew from the beginning who the murderer was, and that never changed.)
Over the years, people have told me that what they remember most about Dirty Proof is the crime, the newspaper setting, and the ending. I like knowing that what inspired me to write the novel — the setting and the crime — is what resonates with readers.
August 31, 2015
A good, old-fashioned detective novel!
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February 22, 2018Old fashion Hammett style detective story - liked the local color and detail. A bit too focused on the process of newspaper editing, but developed the characters well and certainly kept me reading.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews