Dave served thirty-one years with the Chicago Police Department and is now a commander with the Bridgeview Police Department. He graduated from Northwestern’s graduate program for Creative Writing.

Dave’s western, Stand for the Dead, was released in July 2024 by Thorndike Press and in trade paperback in August by Genius Book Publishing.

Out of Cabrini received rave reviews in 2006 and was rereleased by Genius in 2025. The sequel is scheduled to be released this summer. They can be found at https://geniusbookpublishing.com/collections/dave-case.

Out of Cabrini: Chicago tactical cop Stacey Macbeth and his team work one of the most dangerous beats in America—Chicago’s notorious Cabrini Green housing projects. One of the gangs lost a shipment of dope and is threatening to rip the lid off the city and the surrounding suburbs, trying to get it back. It’s a deadly race between Macbeth and the gangbangers to see who will come out on top as things build to a bloody, explosive climax.

Stand for the Dead: The stench of death hung in the air as John Altar studied the massacre and tried to convince himself that his younger brother, Bobby, couldn’t have been part of this. Torn apart by the Civil War, the two brothers had fought on opposite sides, and in defeat, Bobby had fallen in with a group of Confederate raiders when released from a prisoner-of-war camp. Their mother’s consuming wish was for her wayward son to be brought back to her, and Altar had sworn to do it. But how much had the war changed his brother? Riding into the Dakotas, Altar must face an unsavory lawman with a rapacious posse, rampaging Indians, and battle the brutal renegades in a climactic showdown.

Dave, can you tell us what brought you to writing? I have a creative vein, George. I have always been artistic. In fact, after many misstarts, I eventually earned my bachelor’s degree in Fine Art. I had been stumbling through college and took a drawing class. It was the first time I received any art instruction, and it was as if a blindfold had been removed from my soul. I love to draw and, once upon a time, paint. I rediscovered reading, and soon after, wanted to write. It’s like a basic need, like breathing, to express myself. Though I dabble occasionally in drawing, less so painting, I’ve settled comfortably into writing as my expression. Once I became a cop, the need to portray the streets accurately became an obsession.

Tell us about your writing process: Where do you write? What, if any, distractions do you allow? Ha, those are all tied together.

Where do I write? Whenever I can find the time. It can be at home on the desktop, laptop, or with a pad of paper or notebook. I always have paper with me, whether in my truck or backpack, and I have even written using my phone, though this isn’t my favorite—it makes my eyes ache just short of bleeding. Don’t tell my boss, but I’ve been known to take notes or jot down some lines while working—shhhhhhh.

Distractions . . . you mean like life? I wish it were that easy. I know some writers seem to have the ability, strength, courage, or discipline not to let anything distract them. I don’t have that kind of mettle when it comes to writing. I do what I can when I can, and I always have some part of my brain working on whatever story has captured my attention.

Once I have an outline done or a scene in my head, there isn’t much that will stop me. The least of which is sleep, which launches me into the whole outline vs. pantser question.

Oh, how I want to be a pantser! But any time I’ve ever peered down that rabbit hole, I’ve found myself writing so many unnecessary words, with dozens of files of snippets and unused sentences, paragraphs, pages, chapters—when I wrote Out of Cabrini, in the 90’s, I had an outline in the form of index cards taped to an old refrigerator box. Eighty-some cards turned into a manuscript with eighty-some chapters, how convenient. For the record, I find the outline to be the most challenging part of the process.

Okay, how long did it take you to write your first book? In 1998, it was nearly six to eight months, including the note cards/outline. But, if you must know, I wasn’t burdened with knowing what I was doing back then, though I’d argue I’m still not too sure. At that time, I was finishing up my bachelor’s degree, oil painting furiously at my school’s studio, while working full-time as a special operations cop (including being on our HBT Team, think SWAT) and having started a family—married, new (old) house, and one kid.

The manuscript was practically unreadable, and I was told so by at least one person I approached for assistance, and they returned the manuscript a week later and said, “Thanks, but no thanks.” [Thank the good lord they did too, by the way] Mercifully, many others didn’t feel the same way, not that they didn’t think it was unreadable, because it was, but because they agreed to help. I started revising, which should be a four-letter word!

And how long did it take you to sell it? After joining writer’s groups, attending writer’s conferences, and working on the manuscript tirelessly, I finally sold it in April 2005, primarily because of Michael A. Black. Many writers bury that first attempt in a drawer and forge ahead, and I sometimes wonder where I would be as a writer if I had done so. Fortunately, I got some very good blurbs: John Sandford (Camp), Sara Paretsky, William Kent Krueger, my best friend Mike, and even my mom, along with good reviews from Library Journal and Kirkus.

How do you come up with character names? And do you base any of your characters on real people? Names are important to me, and I develop them in several ways. I don’t completely base any character off one person, but if I am picturing a particular person in my mind’s eye and know them well enough, I’ll ask them what their mother’s maiden name was. Several of the characters in Out of Cabrini were named like this.

I have read news articles with names that ring some creative nerve in that quagmire that is my mind. I have an old telephone book from the Chicago area that I occasionally refer to, and I have even returned it to my collection of street notebooks. I am always careful to change some aspect of the name so no one sees their name in one of my books, especially if it’s not a particularly flattering portrayal of a character.

I believe that I am embedded in all my characters in some way. I must be. They come from my thoughts, after all.

Email: davecase@duck.com

Out of Cabrini, Amazon link: Out of Cabrini
Out of Cabrini, Genius Book Publishing link: Out of Cabrini
Stand for the Dead, Amazon link: Stand for the Dead
Stand for the Dead, Genius Book Publishing link: Stand for the Dead

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