This from C-J, photo of Rick finding out how it all ends by Patrick Reddy/The Cincinnati Enquirer:Ex-D.C. insider puts politics in his plots
It would be the biggest political story of the year — and an even bigger sports story
A Kentucky congressman is the subject of two assassination attempts after raising questions about steroid use in baseball.
The entire story was created in the mind of a Northern Kentucky lawyer and former top congressional aide who has turned to writing novels that draw on his time in Washington, his campaign for the House — and, he says, his vivid imagination.
Rick Robinson, a former aide to U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning, (R- Finished) always wanted to try fiction. He didn't sit down to write, however, until a friend wearied of his complaints about Washington political thrillers that read as if they were penned by Capitol newbies, not insiders...
Robinson debuted with "The Maximum Contribution" early last year. It introduced Richard Thompson, a congressional aide thrust into the limelight when his boss dies and Thompson gets elected to the seat from Northern Kentucky. Thompson only has to survive one attempt on his life in that book. Robinson followed it up late last year
with "Sniper Bid," the steroids-related tale...
Robinson, who worked for Bunning when the Hall of Fame pitcher was still in the House, based Thompson on over three decades of up-close observations of politicians.
He based a political consultant, Michael Griffith, on real-life strategists he has known, including the late Republican icon Lee Atwater, who ran Bunning's first congressional race in 1986.
Robinson said the little money he's made writing so far has been plowed back into the books, promoting them and researching ones to come.
The next in the series is "Manifest Destiny," which has Thompson serving as an American observer of an election in Eastern Europe. It contrasts a huge political rally in Bucharest with the annual Fancy Farm Picnic in Graves County.
And numerous real-life Kentucky places and people show up in the books. From Fancy Farm to the Garden Party at the Victoria Inn in La Grange, to locations in
Ashland, a Kentucky flavor runs throughout.
Other characters include Pat Crowley, political reporter for the Kentucky Enquirer, and Frankfort lobbyist John Cooper, who has been friends with Robinson for more than 30 years, since the two were active in Democratic politics as students at Eastern Kentucky University...
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