WINNER Great Southwest Book Festival--Best General Fiction International Book Award Finalist Best Cross Genre Fiction San Francisco Book Festival Honorable Mention Best General Fiction Great Midwest Book Festival Honorable Mention Best Fiction Readers' Favorite International Book Award-Honorable Mention-Best Fiction-Sports The Chicago Cubs haven't won a World Series for more than 100 years or even played in one since 1945. Now they're positioned to win the Series for the first time since 1908--if only curses and bad luck don't haunt them as usual. That's what happens when a swarm of gnats helps the Boston Red Sox tie the Series at three games each. To kill the curse, the Cubs must win Game 7 in Chicago. No one wants the Cubs to win more than Luke Murphy, President of the United States and lifelong fan. Leading the chorus of disbelievers is Murphy's boyhood friend, Bob Walters, a sports radio talk-show host with a beautiful daughter and a big ego who built ratings by being 'the man Cub fans love to hate.' The Cubs have someone else on their side--a brilliant, crazed fan who will do anything to make sure they win. Anything. It starts with an attack on the father of Boston's best pitcher and grows into an escalating threat that could destroy Murphy's career, expose childhood secrets, and kill hundreds of innocent people. Everything comes to a head as Game Seven unfolds--a game the Cubs must win no matter what. Hetzel draws skillfully on decades of top-level reporting experience, a keen understanding of the often fragile (and sometimes twisted) human condition and his lifetime membership in the fellowship of long-suffering Cub fans. The man, in other words, knows his stuff. Killing the Curse truly touches 'em all. --Brian Davis, sportscaster The best part of Killing The Curse is the obvious fact that it was written by a true Cubs fan. This is evidenced not only by the plentiful amount of Cubs' trivia but more so by Dennis Hetzel's seeming acknowledgement that the Cubs are inevitably tripled-teamed by fate, destiny and karma. A true Cubs fan, Dennis Hetzel long ago blew by the first four stages of grief and now resides in the final stage--acceptance. But Killing The Curse imagines the consequences of a deranged fan's inability to achieve this peaceful state and does so in a gripping, well written thriller that holds the reader's attention like a perfect game. --Jack Greiner, attorney, lecturer, and lifelong Reds fan DENNIS HETZEL Killing the Curse' is Dennis Hetzel's first published fiction. He began his career as a weekly newspaper sports editor in the Chicago suburbs and has been a reporter, editor, general manager and publisher at several newspapers, including the Cincinnati Enquirer and the York, Pa., Daily Record , where he was editor and publisher for 13 years. Hetzel has won numerous awards for writing, newspaper industry leadership and community service, and also taught journalism at Penn State and Temple universities. Since late 2010, he has been executive director and chief lobbyist for the Ohio Newspaper Association in Columbus, Ohio. A native of Chicago, he has a degree in political science and a minor in journalism from Western Illinois University, where he met his wife, Cheryl. They have three grown children, a dog, a cat and a home they love in Holden Beach, North Carolina. Alongside his love of writing, Hetzel plays guitar in an acoustic trio, 'Phil's Five & Dime,' which includes fellow author Rick Robinson on mandolin. As far as musical ability goes, he quotes one of his favorite musicians and a fellow Chicagoan, John Prine: 'This song features the 'G' chord, which has served me well.' RICK ROBINSON Rick Robinson, the 2013 Independent Author of the Year, has 30 years' experience in politics and law, including a stint on Capitol Hill as Legislative Director/Chief Counsel to then-Congressman Jim Bunning, R-Ky. Robinson has authored four award-winning political thrillers and an Amazon.com top-ranked collection of political commentary. His third novel, Manifest Destiny, was named Best Fiction at the Paris and New York Book Festivals. In 2010, Manifest Destiny was honored as the Independent Book of the Year and Writ of Mandamus was the Grand Prize Winner at the London Book Festival. His contemporary fiction novel, Alligator Alley, won the grand prize at the Great Southeast Book Festival in 2013. Robinson is a contributor for the Daily Caller, Kentucky Forward, One New England and Northern Kentucky Magazine. He's a graduate of Eastern Kentucky University and Salmon P. Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University. Rick and his wife, Linda, live in Fort Mitchell, Ky., and have three children. He completely agrees with his friend Dennis Hetzel about the importance of the 'G' chord in both guitar and mandolin.