BACK TO THE RAT looks at Tar Heel Sports Scandal. BACK TO THE RAT: Author Larry Rochelle writes another thriller By Bill Willcox in THE CHATHAM RECORD July 4, 2013 Local mystery writer Larry Rochelle has recently completed another book, “Back to the Rat,” a dark thriller set in Chapel Hill. Rochelle may be one of Chatham County’s most prolific authors, writing his books at a current pace of one a year. He has published 24 works of poetry, fiction and nonfiction in the last 13 years. Remarkably, he has typed all these books using just one finger. “Back to the Rat” refers to the former Ramshead Rathskeller restaurant, known affectionately as the “Rat.” The eatery was a Chapel Hill landmark for decades, but it closed in 2008 after the owner failed to pay his taxes. The novel was inspired by the recent attempts to reopen the restaurant, which Rochelle has been fol-lowing in news reports. He considered portraying the reopening of the restaurant in his novel but that proved too complicated. In his book, the restaurant is a still open, a place of history, “a deep, dark area touching on the latest UNC sport scandals. My protagonist, Palmer Morel tries to connect the dots in the football tutoring is-sues facing the Tar Heels. The plot thickens when mob boss Chucky Minori becomes involved.” Those who are familiar with Rochelle’s writing know the Palmer Morel character. This is the 13th in a series of books featuring Morel as a prominent figure. Rochelle’s penchant for writing about conspiracy and the mob also play into the book. “It’s easy to see where gamblers might be involved,” he said. “College sports is a multi-million dollar enterprise, and young college players have been known to shave points or throw games for a little pocket money in the past. Either way, clean sports or mob-tampered college sports, college athletes are used to rake in the money with little help financially. It’s almost slave labor.” Rochelle takes the matter further and looks at the “conspiracy” to keep the athletes eligible academical-ly to play on their sports teams. “They are funneled into educational rehab: tutors, coaches and others try to keep them eligible.” But there is more. A Rochelle thriller would not be complete if the government was not somehow in-volved in shady dealings. “The NCAA and our government get involved because the sports entertainment business is worth a lot of money and it gives people a reason to live,” he said. “Drab lives can be excited about sports. Fans do spend lots of money and time following sports. They want these games to continue and to be legal.” Ultimately, according to the fictionalized account, the government sees big-time college sports as an issue of national importance. “Really, the government becomes involved because loss of college sports programs would create in-stability,” Rochelle said. “Our country doesn’t need a massive disbelief in sports. So, the scandal be-comes a national security issue for our government in “Back to the Rat.” The book features other locations besides “The Rat.” Other settings are Fearrington Village, Deerington Village, Cobb Terrace, Wilson Park in Carrboro, Spanky’s Restaurant, the Durham Bulls Stadium, Franklin Street, Smith Level Road, 15/501 and other sites. Rochelle has always had a passion for writing but it is only in the past decade that he has found time to fully pursue it. In 2006, he retired from a 35-year career teaching English at Johnson County Community College in Kansas. He and his wife moved to Fearrington Village the next year. He taught English for three years at CCCC before leaving the work world for good and devoting himself to writing. “I have to write,” he said. “I always had to write when I was a teacher but we had to write research. Then I started writing poetry books and mysteries and it is always something I have done, starting when I was about 60 years old.” Now 73, he is keeping up his book-a-year pace. A Canadian company published his first five books but ran into a backlog and couldn’t publish any more until 2015 so he decided to switch to Lulu, an online self-publishing company. “At my age it is better to do it this way,” he said. “Otherwise I may have to wait five years to be pub-lished.” The book is available for sale at McIntyre’s Books, Amazon, Amazon Kindle and online at Lulu.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 15:58:12 +0000
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