Ex-cop gets drop on new writing career
By George Houde
Irish American Post Chicago Bureau

You worked, lived, and breathed the life of a Chicago cop and now you retired with a fistful of department commendations, a file of appreciation letters and days that are as wide open as Lake Michigan.

But there are all those wild stories in your head; murders, drug busts, blood, bodies and bad guys. You've got to get something on paper.

And so Dennis M. Banahan has: with 376 pages of wild, spooky intrigues, corrupt politicians, wing-nuts from the far right and left, and tragic heroes and heroines in his first novel, Threshold of Pain  (Rutledge Books, 2001, $28.95).   With a plot that spans 20 years, there are enough twists and turns to keep the readers interested, particularly if you are from the Windy City and know the turf. There are love stories as well, and characters that seem as if they sprouted up out of the asphalt of State Street.

"I didn't have a theme," said Banahan. "I just started writing and it took form."

The book starts in the 1960s when the country -- and Chicago -- was experiencing the pain and agony of Vietnam and political upheaval. His two primary characters are Chicago police officers assigned to the Red Squad, a tactical intelligence unit which became famous for its role in surveillance of individuals and organizations deemed dangerous to the country. These included such well-known groups as the Weathermen and the Black Panthers.

Banahan paints a picture of two dedicated cops on the squad who latch on to the trail of assassins involved in the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy and the plot takes off from there. Big Mike Corrigan is a tough, beefy Irish cop straight out of the South Side Irish. His partner, Johnnie Parello, is one of those curious detective types who follows his instincts. After snooping around in the wrong place at the wrong time, Parello ends up shot to death and Corrigan is left to figure out who the bad guys are.

But after an investigation is stonewalled and the Red Squad disbanded, it takes Corrigan 22 years before he finds another partner, Jefferson Parrish, who becomes interested in the case. Together, they stumble into a series of events that lead them to Parello's killer.  Along the way, we are introduced to a band of deadly neo-Nazis who end up murdering Parrish's new young wife, Rennata McCray, and the resulting vengeance wreaked by a cop who knows how to take an eye-for-an-eye and cover his tracks.

Much of the book is drawn from Banahan's experiences, particularly the characters, who are composites of people the former homicide detective either worked with or against. With 30 years as one of Chicago's Finest, the ex-cop has a lot of ammunition for his writing.

"The characters are composites of people, the best and worst of people," said Banahan in an interview from his South Side Chicago home.  "It was very difficult to develop them but then they started to take shape as I went."

Plot is another thing, he said. Much of the wild storyline of Threshold of Pain sprang from his imagination as most actual murder stories taken from police files are quite straightforward and simple.

"My own experience is that cases are far less complicated than those portrayed by books," he said. "Generally, the most likely suspect is the one who did it."

After writing scads of police reports, first as a patrol officer, then as a homicide detective, narcotics officer and later as a watch commander, Banahan said he found the act of putting words on paper came easy to him, though creative writing is another thing. When he retired in 1999, he tried to organize his day around his new craft.

"I tried a writing schedule, but it didn't work," said Banahan. "I had half of it done, but then my mother passed and I let it lay for six months until a friend said I had to finish it."

He finally did...and entered the world of the mystery author, a crowded but fun place where imagination takes over from the real world. Banahan is a crime and mystery novel fan, belonging to the Police Writers Club and the Mystery Writers of America. He and a writing friend, Gina Gallo, another Chicago police officer turned author, write a monthly column for The Blue Murder,  an on-line magazine. He also writes articles for other on-line magazines.      An Irish American who can do a decent brogue, Banahan made his first trip to Ireland last year to research his family's genealogy. He said he found the country so charming and lovely that he questioned why he hadn't visited before.

"My ancestors emigrated during the Great Famine. They came over on the death ships. I tracked the history back to my great-grandfather who came from County Roscommon in the northern section of the Republic," he said.

The detective work in the genealogy search was made easier by his family name, which is a rather rare one. He was able to track his great-grandfather through the 1880 U.S. Census.

"Banahan is really an uncommon Irish name. There are only about 300 in the States and about a dozen in Ireland," he explained.

For another Gaelic connection, Banahan is a member of the Emerald Society, the Irish-themed organization for police and security personnel.

With retirement came the leisure to finish his book, go to Ireland and live a gentleman's life. And although he said he had slowed down -- "If I slowed down anymore, I'd be dead," he laughed -- he has an ambitious book signing schedule this spring as well as the beginnings of his next writing project.

 He and Gallo are on a Chicago area tour together and have a total of 26 book signings this spring. Banahan called Gallo, the author of Armed and Dangerous , an "outstanding writer."

The duo even has a nickname. "We call ourselves the Chicago Guns, crime fighters turned crime writers," he chuckled.

Banahan, 52, is planning his sequel for Threshold of Pain.  The updated story will include further adventures of Big Mike Corrigan and Jefferson Parrish as Parrish tracks one of his wife's killers to New Orleans where he extracts his final revenge. 

In Bad Ju Ju, the trail leads back to Chicago with a New Orleans homicide detective in hot pursuit of further leads. The plot may bulge with twists and tragedies if Banahan's first book is any indication.