As a veteran political reporter, Taylor Pensoneau placed a premium on accuracy and realism. Now, as an accomplished fiction writer, he is doing the same. Pensoneau has just released Devil on the Prairie (Downstate Publications: $18.95), an intricately written mystery novel that captures readers with its suspense and numerous sidebars. The fast-moving work weaves real-life locales throughout the Midwest to provide a sense of place, and create a realistic tone. “Many of the scenes from the book are set in real places in southwestern Illinois, St. Louis, and elsewhere,” remarked Pensoneau. “I visited a lot of those places in my youth, and in my work in journalism.” Pensoneau, who lives in New Berlin, IL, was a top political writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in the 1960s and 1970s. He was based at the Illinois statehouse for much of his time with Post-Dispatch, but covered some of the seminal moments in national political history, including the Watergate
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