Book Description

Rich in detail, profuse in anecdote...a lost world of violence, greed and corruption - Ruth Rendell, THE TELEGRAPHThis book hurtles along like a Philip Marlowe detective novel...it is beautifully written, a real work of literature. Bergreen evokes the roaring twenties, makes you smell the sleaze and recoil from the noise of gunfire in language that makes you dizzy and breathless. - YORKSHIRE EVENING PRESSAL CAPONE was a poor farm boy from an immigrant slum who created a bootlegging and racketeering empire that spread from New York to the western states. Flashy, amiable, ruthless, his reputation, even in his own lifetimes, became bloated with myths and pseudo-facts. In this brilliantly researched biography, Laurence Bergreen strips away the legend to reveal the real man. He portrays an era driven by greed, thirst and the ruthless pursuit of pleasure, dominated by the image of the man who symbolized it all - Al Capone.A fascinating study of American society and culture...lays bare the origins of the drug-fuelled festival of crime. Highly readable, it charts the transformation of the American dream into the American nightmare, and the assessment of this grim period in US history feels remarkably fresh - SCOTLAND ON SUNDAYFine revisionist biography which peels away the myths that have for so long concealed the real Capone - MAIL ON SUNDAYEngrossing, highly-spiced, persuasive and very well written...a big, bold effort, full to the brim with outsoze personalities and riveting in its account of the cocial histiry of the time... - Vincent Banville, IRISH TIMES