True Crime

Bad Seeds in the Big Apple' is the first book to profile New York City's notorious bandits, gunmen, and desperados of the Prohibition and Depression eras. While numerous books have been written on the city's organized-crime scene, this book completes the picture by introducing readers to infamous New Yorkers such as Richard Reese Whittemore, leader of a gang of jewel thieves; extortion queen Vivian Gordon; bandit and Sing Sing escapee James Nannery; Al Stern and his gang of kidnappers, the men behind the ill-fated 1926 Tombs Prison break; the marauders behind the 1934 Rubel Ice Plant armored car robbery; and dozens of other law breakers who have never before been covered in book form. Patrick Downey also includes a fresh look at a few characters of the era who have received individual book-length treatments.

Who would have thought that an acting career that began as a teenage star in the "Annette" series on the "The Mickey Mouse Club," Walt Disney's "Zorro," "The Roy Rogers Show," and "That's My Mom" would lead to the role of confidante and assistant to Southern California crime-boss Mickey Cohen? King of the Sunset Strip is a pistol-to-the-side-of-your-head Hollywood story. Beginning with the parties, boozing, and sex and the "good-time" macho whoring and gambling of the mob, the story covers the action in Sunset Boulevard penthouses, Beverly Hills mansions, Brentwood estates, and across state lines to Las Vegas. Steve Stevens takes readers down the palm-lined streets of Hollywood to meet film and entertainment giants like Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, Louis Prima, Robert Mitchum, and many more.

A Case of Bad Timing and Poor Judgment

The machine-gun murders of seven men on the morning of February 14, 1929, by killers dressed as cops became the gangland “crime of the century.” Or so the story went. Since then it has been featured in countless histories, biographies, movies, and television specials. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, however, is the first book-length treatment of the subject. Challenging the commonly held assumption that Al Capone ordered the wholesale slayings to gain supremacy in the Chicago underworld, authors William J. Helmer and Arthur J. Bilek assert the crime was a case of bad timing and poor judgment by a secret crew from St. Louis known to Capone’s mostly Italian mob as the “American boys.”

The target of the murder squad was indeed Bugs Moran, but the American boys, who were dressed as policemen and arrived in two bogus police cars, entered the garage where the massacre took place before Moran arrived. Not knowing who Moran was or what he looked like, the counterfeit cops stupidly killed everyone to make sure they got their man.

Based on a careful review of reliable evidence, a critical reading of news accounts of the time, a 1935 manuscript written by the widow of one of the gunmen, and  a lookout’s long-suppressed confession, The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre is a fresh new look at the crime that captured the nation’s imagination. In the end, the machine-gun bullets heard ’round the world marked the beginning of the end for Al Capone.

Meticulously documented, lavishly detailed, exhaustively researched, and written with an eye for the truths that have remained largely hidden, The Complete Public Enemy Almanac" provides a reliable source of information about the violent and lawless era of the twenties and thirties."

Meticulously documented, lavishly detailed, exhaustively researched, and written with an eye for the truths that have remained largely hidden, The Complete Public Enemy Almanac" provides a reliable source of information about the violent and lawless era of the twenties and thirties."

After Capone is the first book-length work to present the complete, never-before-told story of Frank "the Enforcer"Nitti—born Francesco Raffele Nitto—the driving force behind the Chicago mob's operations in the years that followed Al Capone's imprisonment. Beginning with Nitti's Italian origins, Mars Eghigian traces the Enforcer's entry into and subsequent rise inside Chicago's underworld, his near-fatal shooting by city detectives, his strange death, and the ultimate downfall of all who were associated with him.
Based on years of research and supported by original sources from state and federal archives, After Capone is the definitive reference on Nitti's violent life and times. The result is a comprehensive and arousing portrait of the cunning mob boss, his life experiences, the people around him, and organized crime in Chicago in the post-Capone era. In addition to dispelling such popular notions as that Natti followed Capone to Chicago and that he was Scarface's cousin, Eghigian provides an all-encompassing view of Nitti's criminal activities, which stretched farther beyond Chicago than those of any other organized crime family until that time.
The driving force that expanded the Chicago mob's operations, Nitti led the mob away from the illegal booze that had been its mainstay during Prohibition into the legitimate distribution of alcohol after the repeal of Prohibition, labor union racketeering, and the mob's attempts to control illicit gambling from coast to coast. After Capone is a fascinating and chilling account of the ability of mob power to adapt to the constantly shifting nature of American culture.

A historical treatment of the career of the members of the Dillinger gang along with individual member biographies.