The Other Chicago Mob: The True Story of Gary Cohen Man in Blue Review

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The Other Chicago Mob: The True Story of Gary Cohen Man in Blue ReviewI bought this book for my husband, who is interested in mobs and cops and Chicago history. He says the book is fun to read. And very descriptive- sometimes too descriptive. He suggests I read it. He recommends it as a good read.The Other Chicago Mob: The True Story of Gary Cohen Man in Blue Overview

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The First Vice Lord: Big Jim Colosemo and the Ladies of the Levee Review

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The First Vice Lord: Big Jim Colosemo and the Ladies of the Levee ReviewThis is a brisk and entertaining account of the infamous career of Big Jim Colosimo, an influential political fixer, restauranteur and career criminal who was murdered shortly after the start of the Prohibition Era. Colosimo preceded Johnny Torrio and Al Capone as one of the top racketeers in Chicago. His celebrated restaurant and night club was unique in that served patrons from all classes of society, professional athletes, crooks, celebrities, politicians and elite members of the city's social register alike.
Jim Colosimo rose to power as a leader of Chicago's sanitation workers and as a top precinct captain for the notorious political bosses of the 1st Ward, Democratic aldermen "Bathhouse John" Coughlin and Michael "Hinky Dink" Kenna. Colosimo and his first wife, Victoria, owned and operated numerous lucrative brothels in the infamous Levee district. During elections, Colosimo turned out the pimps, cadets and whores to deliver their votes to the political machine. He was on good terms with the Everleigh sisters and collected payoffs from various Levee resort operators to be divided with the politicians and the police.
The key problem that I found in reading this book was that so much of the political and election data supplied in the text was clearly erroneous. I would have given this book a better rating if not for these errors: State's Attorney John Wayman did not conduct vice raids in the Levee as a prelude for a run for governor in 1913 (he had been an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 1912 which was held months before the raids began in earnest); "Big Bill" Thompson was not the incumbent alderman of the 2nd Ward when he ran for mayor in 1915 (he had served in the city council more than a decade earlier) and he was not encouraged to make the mayoral race by Carter Harrison's decision to retire (Harrison was a mayoral candidate in 1915, but lost to County Clerk Robert Sweitzer in the nominating primary); Thompson testified on behalf of his former campaign manager, Fred "Poor Swede" Lundin, during the latter's trial for orchestrating corruption and wasteful spending at the Chicago Board of Education, but Thompson was not under indictment as a criminal defendant charged with participating in this particular scandal; William E. Dever defeated Arthur C. Lueder in the 1923 mayoral race (Thompson was not a candidate that year). Political events are an intregal part of the Colosimo story, but the book is quite careless in supplying the necessary details correctly.
The errors that I have referred to are merely a sampling of the mistakes to be found in the otherwise enjoyable text. There are several more, but space does not permit me to list all of the non sequiturs. One final example will suffice. According to the glossary, the Volstead Act was the popular name for the 13th Amendment which ushered in the legal prohibition of alcohol in the USA. In fact, the Volstead Act (the bill was named for its Congressional sponsor, US Representative Andrew J. Volstead of Minnesota) was the legislation that implemented the 18th Amendment; the 13th Amendment was passed during the Reconstruction era and formally abolished slavery in the United States immediately after the conclusion of the Civil War.
There is some good information in this book (the material related to Colosimo's second marriage to Dale Winters, his officially unsolved murder and his lavish funeral is well handled), but the presence of so many historical errors prevents me from rating the book as definitive.The First Vice Lord: Big Jim Colosemo and the Ladies of the Levee Overview

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The St. Valentine's Day Massacre: The Untold Story of the Gangland Bloodbath That Brought Down Al Capone Review

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The St. Valentine's Day Massacre: The Untold Story of the Gangland Bloodbath That Brought Down Al Capone ReviewIf you enjoy books that have 1001 points of trivia in them, you'll love this. It's jam packed with facts. It's clear the authors researched exhaustively.
For me it was exhausting, too. Some true crime books have a tendency to deteriorate into an spider web of tangentially related facts and read like reports instead of narratives. This is one of them. I now know the street addresses of dozens of gangsters, a dozen pseudonyms for each as well as multiple spelling variants for those pseudonyms. I know the names of relatives. I know the names of various reporters and photographers and the paths they took to the crime scene. We got a seeming word for word recital of every meeting of the coroner's investigation, were told which meetings got postponed and by whom, were informed of the several addresses they were held at and even the exact room numbers. We got a roll call of who was present. After slogging through pages and pages of testimony that to me seemed banal and utterly uninformative, the author sums it up by declaring that the coroner's investigation yielded nothing much of interest.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. So why did we get the blow by blow instead of the few leads that actually contributed to the investigation? Why did we hear about every dead end in detail, only to be informed that... it was indeed a dead end.
And yet, with all that information, as another reviewer pointed out, Bugs Moran and the other North Siders were glossed over.
So that's my take on it. If you are fond of books that are like tossed salads of facts, this is your kind of book. It's a trivia lover's dream. If you like an author to sift out the important details and give you a sequential, streamlined narrative (that's me) this book will drag.The St. Valentine's Day Massacre: The Untold Story of the Gangland Bloodbath That Brought Down Al Capone Overview

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Al Capone and His American Boys: Memoirs of a Mobster's Wife Review

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Al Capone and His American Boys: Memoirs of a Mobster's Wife ReviewLike gangster Gus Winkeler, this book is a real killer. William Helmer, who has been one of the true experts on Prohibition-era crime for four decades, hits the mark again with a well-crafted, beautifully written and researched work. Helmer rescued Georgette Winkeler's intimate memoir from FBI files and subsequently brought to light a wealth of first-hand knowledge that names the four shooters of the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, who were not the usual suspects in Chicago, but imported, fresh faces, mostly from Saint Louis - now known as "The American Boys." Moreover, he has illuminated August "Gus" Winkeler, who stayed in the city after the killings in the Clark Street garage on Feb. 14th, 1929 to become a force in the Outfit until his own death in 1933.
Winkeler's widow, a shattered but nevertheless cogent and credible witness, wrote her rather dynamic manuscript after her husband's murder at the hands of the Nitti-run mob. Helmer, who in 2004 with Art Bilek wrote "The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre - The Untold Story of the Gangland Bloodbath That Brought Down Al Capone," (another must read) has completed the historical deconstruction of the denouement of the Chicago Outfit of the 1920's with this latest treatise. Along with Georgette's recollections, Helmer has basically tied up the post-massacre gangland years with a culminating addendum of all the relevant players who have become household names, including Capone, Frank Nitti, and the rest of the infamous crowd who made Chicago rumble. Of all of the journalists who have taken on this epic, Helmer has added to his forty-years of contributions with his best and most revealing efforts in this book, defining the profile of the true historian.
For those of us who never get enough of the elusive truth and who ourselves research those hypnotic times, this book is, simply put, pure pleasure. Georgette's memory of seeing her husband and the other American Boys parading around in their Chicago Police costumes before mowing down George "Bugs" Moran's men in 1929, is the most scintillating solution imaginable to one of the world-changing crimes of the 20th century. Along with his 1969 history of the machine-gun (The Gun That Made the Twenties Roar) and his almanac of public enemies (co-written with the late, great gangsterologist Rick Mattix), William Helmer has once again proven himself as a premier authority on the Prohibition decade. This is an elegant book (buy it in hardcover - it's beautiful) issued by the University of Indiana Press, with no stone left unturned. I admit to being a great Helmer admirer; however, as a researcher myself, I must also say that he sets the standard for all of us. I give this one an unabashed five stars, but it deserves six. It is more fun than a barrel of booze.Al Capone and His American Boys: Memoirs of a Mobster's Wife Overview

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Thirty Years in the Trenches Covering Crooks, Characters and Capers Review

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Thirty Years in the Trenches Covering Crooks, Characters and Capers ReviewDrummond, a reporter with CBS-owned Channel 2 in Chicago for many years, is best known for covering the "Outfit" in Chicago. As any Chicagoan can attest, he also covered many characters and other crooks, besides the big fish that hogged the headlines. Although there is a chapter on Tony "Big Tuna" Accardo, Drummond wisely focuses on the little guys that many of us forgot. This is a smart choice, for much is already written about the big guys like Accardo and if Drummond wanted to cover them right, he would of had to have written a separate book on several people. The only thing missing in the book is more on Drummond himself, for if you are a personal friend of his, as I am, you know that he is more interesting than any of the crooks and capers he ever covered. Read this book and try to learn as much as you can about John Drummond - a living Chicago legend and a journalism institution!Thirty Years in the Trenches Covering Crooks, Characters and Capers Overview

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To Sleep with the Angels: The Story of a Fire Review

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To Sleep with the Angels: The Story of a Fire ReviewMany books have been written about real-life tragedies, and in this sense, Cowan and Kuenster's book is no different. However, there is a thin line in these type of books between boring the reader by burying the human aspect of the story with an overload of factual material and becoming nothing more than a non-fiction hankie weeper. Quite a few books have disappointed me in the past by straying to either one side or the other. Not so with this one. It is a solid piece of reporting that does not lose the human dimension of the tragedy. Nor does it obscure the investigation and the facts with too much emphasis on the human dimension.
The fire at Our Lady of the Angels was one of the worst tragedies to strike America, made even more so in that the vast majority of its victims were innocent children. The authors follow the story from the day it occured to the fire itself and the heroic efforts of the fire department to the later delegation of blame and recriminations from what was seen as a bureaucratic conspiracy. In doing so they manage to bring the reader into the story not merely as a spectator but almost as a fellow reporter, sharing not only facts, but also conjectures and whispers plus personal items about the victims, always careful always to straddle the line between objectivity and thje trap of a "crusading" journalism. By letting the story speak for itself, they bring it home all the more forcefully, to where no one who reads it will remain unaffected.
This book should also serve as a warning against the false sense of security that this sort of thing cannot happen again. There are still many schools, public and private, at risk, and this is a book that should be read by every parent with children still in school, and not only during Fire Prevention Week.To Sleep with the Angels: The Story of a Fire Overview

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Guns and Roses: The Untold Story of Dean O'Banion, Chicago's Big Shot before Al Capone Review

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Guns and Roses: The Untold Story of Dean O'Banion, Chicago's Big Shot before Al Capone ReviewEven though I have read numerous other books on Chicago's infamous past during the prohibition years I found Rose Keefe's effort entitled Guns and Roses to be another fascinating read which is primarily devoted to Al Capone's North Side rivals. O'Banion's loss of his mother at an early age and subsequent move to a seedy section of Chicago contributed to Dean's alliance with the city's criminal element. The warring parties were driven by greed in invading each other's assigned territory during the beer wars. After the assassination of O'Banion in his florist shop in 1924 a number of his friends (Weiss, Drucci, and Moran) all had short terms heading the North Side mob. Weiss and Drucci being shot and Moran having his gang virtually wiped out at the St. Valentine's Day Massacre on February 14, 1929. If you have read other books on this subject you can prepare yourself to enjoy yet another offering on the subject with this book. In addition, this book has photographs I have not seen in other books. I'm sure you won't be disappointed.Guns and Roses: The Untold Story of Dean O'Banion, Chicago's Big Shot before Al Capone Overview

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Accidental Anarchist An Review

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Accidental Anarchist An ReviewAn Accidental Anarchist is well-written, thoroughly researched account of the death of Lazarus Averbach. It's an excellent companion to A. Hemon's "The Lazarus Project," giving the reader insight into the historical, cultural, social and political climate surrounding the 1908 murder.Accidental Anarchist An Overview

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The Outfit Review

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The Outfit Review"The Outfit" is a well written, thoroughly comprehensive look at the post-Capone history of organized crime in the city of Chicago. Gus Russo does an excellent job of leaving no stone unturned as he chronicles the Outfit's activity from the jailing of Capone to its decline in the 90s. Along the way we meet the gangsters who made the Chicago mob rich and famous: Tony "Joe Batters" Accardo, Paul "the Waiter" Ricca, "Curly" Humphries, Johnny Roselli,Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik, and Sam "Mooney" Giancana. Russo discusses the role of each in making the Chicago Syndicate the power it was in the world of organized crime.
Russo's breezy style makes "The Outfit" an absolute joy to read, deftly mixing facts and ancedotes like a master chef. Read about the takeover of IATSE, the Hollywood union, and the infiltration of the mob into the world of the Hollywood studios; the Mob's entry and takeover of Las Vegas; the infiltration into the Teamsters and the scheming of the Outfit to fix the 1960 presidential election and what happened when they were doublecrossed. It was by no means a smooth ride - along the way Russo details the eforts of law enforcement to balance the books, so to speak, with the result that the Outfit always had to keep scheming, keep looking, for new rackets and businesses to infiltrate. Russo keeps the pages turning with a compelling style that makes the book's 550 pages seem like 100 when you hit the end.
Few books even attempt to cover the history of the Chicago Mob after Al Capone left the scene. Fewer still are this enjoyuable. A must for crime historians and those just interested in a good book.The Outfit Overview

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Explosion of Chicago's Black Street Gangs-1900 to Present (English and English Edition) Review

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Explosion of Chicago's Black Street Gangs-1900 to Present (English and English Edition) Review"USENI PERKINS' BOOK IS LONG OVERDUE.
It is not a how to solve all of our black youth gang problems.
Nor is it the result of the current crisis in gang relations.
Perkins writes from the perspective of a black inside to the gang phenomenon....."
[from the introduction by John R. Porter, Ph.D., Chicago, Illinois, 1987]Explosion of Chicago's Black Street Gangs-1900 to Present (English and English Edition) Overview

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The Gangs of Chicago Review

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The Gangs of Chicago ReviewThis is a hugely entertaining account of Chicago's criminal past. In this edition, Herbert Asbury's original title, "The Gem of the Prairie," was jettisoned since the publishers were eager to tie the book to the popular Martin Scorcese film "The Gangs of New York" which was loosely adapted from another Asbury title.
The book is not free from factual errors, some minor, some significant. It is nonetheless an important entry in the bibliography of true crime publications. Asbury made a cottage industry out of turning out a series of similar books set in New Orleans, New York, San Francisco and Chicago. Arguably, Asbury helped created the true crime genre and his books are being copied by writers up to the present day.
A word of caution to prospective readers: the Prohibition Era does not figure too prominently in this book. There is a single chapter summarizing the gang wars of the Twenties, but it seemed to have been added almost as an afterthought. It is the last chapter in the book. The bulk of the text addresses early criminal activities and enterprises from prior decades. So, if you are looking for a lengthy account of the rise of Al Capone, this book may disappoint you.
If possible, I would recommend that you seek out a previous printing of "Gem of the Prairie" from Northern Illinois University Press. This 1986 reprint includes a worthwhile introduction by Professor Perry Duis, an esteemed member of the history department faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago.The Gangs of Chicago Overview

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First in Violence, Deepest in Dirt: Homicide in Chicago, 1875 - 1920 Review

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First in Violence, Deepest in Dirt: Homicide in Chicago, 1875 - 1920 ReviewThe rebuilding of Chicago after the fire of 1871, was the beginning of a new era and influx of immigrants into the US largest cities. Skilled trades were being streamlined into factory assembly line work. The entertainment industry was still a pasttime of the elite. The abundant supply of corner bars met the demand of the male factory worker demographic. Adler gathers all of the sociological factors of this time period and defines the trends that he found when cross matching time period, socioeconomic status and ethnic background. There is even further analysis based on the time frame of how long an immigrant resided in the US prior to commiting his crime. One murderer was acquitted based on the arguement that he was abiding by the rules of "the old country". It was a fascinating read and made me hungry for more.First in Violence, Deepest in Dirt: Homicide in Chicago, 1875 - 1920 Overview

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Murder & Mayhem on Chicago's West Side (IL) Review

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Murder & Mayhem on Chicago's West Side (IL) ReviewThis is the third book in this series of five that I have read, and is the best one thus far. Included in this book is the death of Frank Capone during the Cicero election of 1924, the death of John Hamilton (one of John Dillinger's cohorts), the murder of Eddie O'Hare, Roger Touhy, John Wayne Gacy, and the demise of Lester Gillis (aka "Baby Face" Nelson). My favorite of the above stories is the one entitled "The Battle of Barrington" which provides us with the shootout between the F.B.I. and "Baby Face" Nelson. There is a heartbreaking story involving the murder of three boys in October of 1955 in addition to a few others. I have found all of the books I have read in this series worth while, but this one is the best so far.Murder & Mayhem on Chicago's West Side (IL) Overview

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Deadly Thrills: The True Story of Chicago's Most Shocking Killers Review

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Deadly Thrills: The True Story of Chicago's Most Shocking Killers ReviewThis is the best true crime story I've ever read. I live outside Chicago and remember reading about Robin Gecht and his buddies. It would have been front-page news except it was given short shrift because of the Tylenol killings. Her details about the inner workings of the police department, the personalities of the people working on the case, and the methodical explanation of the evidence, are fascinating. She makes you care about the victims and their families but doesn't subject the reader to any psychobabble. She doesn't justifying the killers' actions because of their childhoods. I read this book non-stop, didn't put it down until I was done. This is an excellent first book, I hope she writes many, many more. Five stars aren't enough.Deadly Thrills: The True Story of Chicago's Most Shocking Killers Overview

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Forever Open, Clear, and Free: The Struggle for Chicago's Lakefront Review

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Forever Open, Clear, and Free: The Struggle for Chicago's Lakefront ReviewHere is the story the subtitle suggests: Chicagoans gradually realized that the lands fronting Lake Michigan were more than mere wastelands to be utilized variously by industrialists and conventioneers, and this realization led citizens from A. Montgomery Ward down to the plainest of the plain to do battle with a series of regimes which seemed to have a very odd construction of the phrase, from the city charter, "forever open, free and clear". It is the people, not the government of Chicago, whom we should thank that parts of Grant, Jackson, and Lincoln Parks are still "open, free and clear".
Beyond her immediate theme, however, Lois Wille has written an excellent concise introduction to the history of Chicago, which will especially appeal to those who approach history from the viewpoint of non-conformism. And in a city like Chicago, you're either part of the Machine or a non-conformist.
Lois Wille was a colleague of Mike Royko, all the way from the Chicago Daily News days. She has all of his creativity and productive skepticism, and, in her own way, did just as much to worry and afflict the destructive establishmentarians who by fair means and foul seem to wind up governing the City of Chicago.Forever Open, Clear, and Free: The Struggle for Chicago's Lakefront Overview

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Murder & Mayhem in Chicago's Downtown (IL) Review

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Murder & Mayhem in Chicago's Downtown (IL) ReviewIf you have done considerable reading on Chicago gangsterdom and are looking for something new in that regard you probably will not find it here. However, I found this book to be interesting reading even though I have read numerous books on Chicago crime and prowled the streets and cemeteries with a friend looking for old haunts with an infamous past. This volume includes chapters on Dean O'Banion, Hymie Weiss, Jake Lingle, Terrible Tommy O'Connor, and other lesser lights that may be somewhat more obscure. I especially enjoyed the first chapter on the December 30, 1903, fire at the "fireproof" Iroquois Theatre. I had heard of it, but had never read anything about it.
I found this book and two others in this series in Chicago two weeks ago, and ordered the remaining two from Amazon. For anyone interested in Chicago crime this should be an interesting set for you to acquire. I look forward to reading the remaining four.Murder & Mayhem in Chicago's Downtown (IL) Overview

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Burnham of Chicago: Architect and Planner, Second Edition Review

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Burnham of Chicago: Architect and Planner, Second Edition ReviewThomas Hines is one of the best professors at UCLA; his classes on architectural history remain some of my very favorites from my four years at the school. This book is a fascinating account of architect Burnham's personal and professional life, and is bound to be interesting to students both of architecture, history and human nature.Burnham of Chicago: Architect and Planner, Second Edition Overview

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To Serve and Collect: Chicago Politics and Police Corruption from the Lager Beer Riot to the Summerdale Scandal Review

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To Serve and Collect: Chicago Politics and Police Corruption from the Lager Beer Riot to the Summerdale Scandal ReviewI'm an avowed Chicago history buff and found references in this book that simply cannot be found anywhere else. The bibliography alone has led to me several other books on the topic, which is appreciated. Really brought the city to life, and made you want to search out the street corners in question. I found myself asking older acquaintances if they ever met Richie Morrison.
However I have to say the publishers did not do their job here. This book is poorly edited, suffering from simple errors such as misspellings (it's ward heeler, not ward healer), and in general confusing to those of us unfamiliar with the arcane characters filling the pages. I often found myself having to backtrack to figure out who the author was referring to -- a problem compounded by the numerous Irish names and confusing nomenclature.To Serve and Collect: Chicago Politics and Police Corruption from the Lager Beer Riot to the Summerdale Scandal Overview

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After Capone: The Life and World of Chicago Mob Boss Frank The Enforcer" Nitti" Review

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After Capone: The Life and World of Chicago Mob Boss Frank The Enforcer" Nitti" ReviewIn a way the title of After Capone is misleading. This work not only covers history after Capone's exit from the Chicago Outfit, but deals with the early history of the Chicago Mob as well. Mars Eghigian has done an awesome job with this first bio of Frank Nitti. Everything to the last detail has been carefully researched and noted. He has utilized primary source records that others have neglected, such as actual court transcripts, birth, death and marriage records, immigration records, city directories and of course, all of the major Chicago newspapers to write the definite work on the life and death of Al Capone's successor. Not only that, but the prose maintains the reader's attention. This is a book that no historian of organized crime and Chicago history can do without. Researchers can thank Eghigian for having done a wonderful service.After Capone: The Life and World of Chicago Mob Boss Frank The Enforcer" Nitti" Overview

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People Wasn't Made to Burn: A True Story of Housing, Race, and Murder in Chicago Review

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People Wasn't Made to Burn: A True Story of Housing, Race, and Murder in Chicago ReviewJoe Allen has written a masterpiece of historical narrative. The story of James Hickman and his family is an emotionally wrought story on its own. Allen's retelling leaves none of that emotion out. Although it is history he is writing down, the manner of the telling makes that history as current as the latest breaking news. The book is further enhanced by the inclusion of artist Ben Shahn's illustrations reprinted from a 1947 Harper's magazine feature about the Hickman case. Allen ends his story with a description of a 2010 fire in Cicero, Illinois, which is right outside of Chicago. There were no fire escapes in the building and it was overcrowded. The people who lived there were violating occupancy laws because they could not afford separate apartments. That fire killed seven people and was found to be deliberately set by the landlord and his maintenance man. This time around the authorities were able to get an indictment of the men responsible for the deaths. In fact, the prosecution intends to seek the death penalty. However, the system that Willoughby Abner said "failed to heed the need of Hickman and millions of other Hickmans" continues to force people to live in unsafe living conditions while making it likely that unscrupulous landlords will continue to choose profits over the safety of those who rent from them. Indeed, it will continue to make it likely that certain landlords would rather burn their properties than take care of them.
-excerpt from CounterpunchPeople Wasn't Made to Burn: A True Story of Housing, Race, and Murder in Chicago Overview

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