The Book of Death

CHICAGO: The curious case of the death of mystery writer Eugene Izzi just became a little more curious. Investigators looking into Izzi's apparent suicide found a completed but unpublished manuscript with striking similarities to the way Izzi died. The last chapter of the novel has its protagonist (a Chicago mystery writer) in a situation that turned out to be uncomfortably close to real life events: Thrown out of his 14th floor office window with a noose around his neck that's tied to a metal desk. In the book, the hero survives, pulls himself up and shoots members of an Indiana militia group who are trying to kill him. In real life, Izzi had talked about receiving threats from such a group for speaking out against militias. But investigators doubt any foul play was involved. Instead, they've narrowed Izzi's death down to two possibilities: that he planned his suicide to read like the book, or he was acting out its finale to add realism and died accidentally in the process. Ultimately the truth, police say, will probably remain a mystery.