DECEMBER 5 • 2019 | 41
D
etroit attorney Robert
Kass has published his
first novel, To Save the
Nation (Carob Tree Press), a
labor of love that took nearly 20
years from conception to print.
The book’
s protagonist, ide-
alistic Detroit attorney David
Winkler, is on a Caribbean
vacation when he stumbles onto
a situation that seems difficult
to believe. A young woman
who grew up in Uruguay has
learned her birth parents were
Argentinians who were among
the 30,000 leftist dissidents who
disappeared during the “Dirty
War” of the 1970s.
Her birth father, a wealthy
banker, was supposedly
killed in a small plane accident,
but the charred body that was
supposedly his had no head or
hands. There was no positive
identification and no formal
investigation was done. After
his reported death, the banker’
s
financial empire collapsed, and
his fortune disappeared. The
woman hires Winkler to inves-
tigate whether the banker is still
alive.
“I didn’
t really pick the topic;
it picked me,
” said Kass of
Huntington Woods.
As an international attorney
in Belgium in the 1970s, Kass
had a client like the banker in
the novel; he was killed in a
small plane crash, after which
his banks collapsed. As in the
novel, there were rumors he
hadn’
t been on the plane at all.
Kass also knew the banker’
s
in-house counsel, who died
under torture after the plane
crash and financial collapse.
“Over the years there have
been so many people in my life
who have had something to do
with this story that it seemed I
couldn’
t get away from it,
” Kass
said.
A client at his Detroit law
firm was the banker’
s cous-
in, who had visited him in
Argentina. At a graduation
party, Kass met someone who
had lost a lot of money when
the banker’
s financial empire
collapsed; his mother was best
friends with the
widow of the bank-
er’
s in-house counsel.
Kass interviewed the
widow during a trip
to Argentina in 2010.
During the same
trip, he also spoke
with some of the 500
people taken at birth
from their mothers
— who were then
killed — and raised by parents
in the Argentina political power
elite. About 100 of them have
been reunited with their birth
families through DNA testing,
he said.
Kass spoke to the other side
as well. The Spanish tutor he
hired in Michigan before his
Argentina trip was from an
Argentinian military family,
and his stepfather had been a
colonel during the “Dirty War.
”
He was eager to share his side
of the story with Kass. During
their meeting, he justified the
army’
s actions, saying the mili-
tary had done what they’
d had
to do “to save the nation.
” Kass
adopted the phrase as his book
title.
Kass admits he was nervous
about the interview. “That
morning, I woke up very early,
in a sweat, asking myself why I
was risking my own safety and
that of my wife, who accompa-
nied me, to interview someone
involved in the murder
of thousands of peo-
ple.
”
After nearly two
decades of research,
mostly during vaca-
tions, Kass decided
to write it as a novel
when he couldn’
t get
enough information
about how the actual
story ended.
Kass describes the book as
“a legal thriller with a human
rights message” that’
s still rele-
vant today. Political dissidents
and journalists have disap-
peared in 108 countries around
the world, with 45,000 cases in
92 nations pending before the
United Nations, he said. An
epilogue to the novel provides
resources for further study on
“enforced disappearances.
”
Be wary of the slippery slope,
said Kass; when a country feels
threatened, it’
s easy to abandon
civil and human rights.
Kass has also written three
nonfiction books about estate
planning and administration.
To Save the Nation is available
from Amazon as a paperback
and soon as an e-book, and in
audio format from Audible.
Over the years, so many
people in my life had something
to do with this story I couldn’t
get away from it.
— BOB KASS
Bob Kass
Attorney Bob Kass says his thriller
was 20 years in the making.
Arts&Life
Labor of Love
Attorney pens thriller based on international
intrigue that touched his life.
BARBARA LEWIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER