Inside West Virginia Politics

In our first two segments, Attorney Mike Kelly, a former family court judge for Kanawha County for 15 years who has now returned to private practice, stops by to discuss his new book “Marrow Bone,” which delves into the politics of the Mountain State.Kelly says he wrote the book because since he first began practicing law in Mingo County, he has been fascinated by West Virginia politics and how unique and personal the state’s politics are in comparison to other counties. In the book, he uses a blend of both fact and fiction to create a narrative describing how the state’s politics work.The attorney says the plot of the book follows two fictional wealthy, politically connected families in West Virginia who he says are basically the “power brokers,” or the people behind the politicians and candidates, of the state’s politics.Kelly says while many of the characters and specific situations are fictional, they are based on real people and events that tie into the state’s politics, such as murder cases creating mor