The corruption in Illinois politics is often seen as such a farce that if you pitched an Illinois political scandal as the plot for a book, no one would buy it.
But Illinois politics have inspired plenty of books and movies – and probably no one has done it more convincingly in recent times than mystery writer Michael Harvey.
Harvey is the co-creator, writer and executive producer of the Emmy-nominated television series Cold Case Files and is the author of The Innocence Game.
His latest book was inspired by former Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich. The Governor's Wife is a continuation of Harvey's Michael Kelly series.
Harvey says that this is his favorite Kelly book so far, and that he doesn't plan on stopping the private investigator's story anytime soon.
"I think one thing that I've learned first as a reporter, and as a documentarian, and now as a writer, is that the world is a complex place," says Harvey. "I think earlier on you see the world as sort of black and white, and then you realize that's not the case. You can make it black and white if you want to dumb the world down. But in reality, if you really want to look at how the world is, it's just not that easy. "
