- BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Criminals & Outlaws
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- TRUE CRIME / Organized Crime
- BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Criminals & Outlaws
- HISTORY / United States / State & Local / Middle Atlantic (DC, DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA)
- HISTORY / United States / State & Local / Midwest (IA, IL, IN, KS, MI, MN, MO, ND, NE, OH, SD, WI)
- HISTORY / United States / State & Local / New England (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT)
- HISTORY / United States / State & Local / South (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV)
- HISTORY / United States / State & Local / Southwest (AZ, NM, OK, TX)
- TRUE CRIME / Organized Crime
Manhattan Mafia Guide
9781609493066
Regular price $19.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%During the early twentieth century, Sicilian and Southern Italian immigrants poured into New York City.
Looking to escape poverty and persecution at home, they soon discovered that certain criminal enterprises followed them to America. Before any codes of honor were established in the New World, violent bosses wreaked havoc on their communities in their quest to rule the underworld. It took several decades for the Mafia to mature into a contemporary organized crime syndicate. Some names and places from both eras are still infamous today, like Frank Costello and the Copacabana, while some have remained hidden in absolute secrecy until now. Walk in their footsteps as New York City author Eric Ferrara explores the myths and realities of one of America's most feared and fascinating subjects.

New York City Gangland
9780738573144
Regular price $24.99 Sale price $17.49 Save 30%Throughout the United States, there is no single major metropolitan area more closely connected to organized crime than New York City.
With the federal prohibition on alcohol in 1920, Gotham's shadowy underworld began evolving from strictly regional and often rag-tag street gangs into a sophisticated worldwide syndicate that was--like the chocolate egg crème--incubated within the confines of its five boroughs.New York City Ganglandoffers an unparalleled collection of rarely circulated images, many appearing courtesy of exclusive law enforcement sources, in addition to the private albums of notorious racketeering figures such as Charles "Lucky'? Luciano, Al "Scarface'? Capone, Joe "The Boss'? Masseria, "Crazy'? Joe Gallo, and John Gotti.

The Boys in Chicago Heights: The Forgotten Crew of the Chicago Outfit
9781609497330
Regular price $21.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%Chicago Heights was long the seat of one of the major street crews of the Chicago Outfit, but its importance has often been overlooked and misunderstood.
The crew's origins predate Prohibition, when Chicago Heights was a developing manufacturing center with a large Italian immigrant population. Its earliest bosses struggled for control until a violent gang war left the crew solidified under the auspices of Al Capone. For the remainder of the twentieth century, the boys from Chicago Heights generated large streams of revenue for the Outfit through its vast gambling enterprises, union infiltration and stolen auto rackets. For the first time, the history of the Chicago Heights street crew is traced from its inception through its last known boss.

Gangsters and Organized Crime in Buffalo
9781609495640
Regular price $23.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%Take a tour of Buffalo, NY's mobster and mafia history. Local mob expert reveals gangsters' stories, hangouts and more.
Buffalo has housed its fair share of thugs and mobsters. Besides common criminals and bank robbers, a powerful crime family headed by local boss Stefano Magaddino emerged in the 1920s. Close to Canada, Niagara Falls and Buffalo were perfect avenues through which to transport booze, and Magaddino and his Mafiosi maintained a stranglehold on the city until his death in 1974. Local mob expert Michael Rizzo takes a tour of Buffalo's mafia exploits everything from these brutal gangsters' favorite hangouts to secret underground tunnels to murder.

Shocking Stories of the Cleveland Mob
9781596299184
Regular price $21.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
Organized Crime in Miami
9781467123952
Regular price $24.99 Sale price $17.49 Save 30%Join author and Miami native Avi Bash as he exposes the life and activities of Organized Crime in Miami in the 20th century.
While other cities are credited for birthing and honing the legendary crime figures who inevitably influenced and shaped their susceptible surroundings and culture, Miami is where the Mob, like many American citizens, often turned when seeking vacation, vice, or a new beginning. Dating back to the first quarter of the 20th century, resourceful gangsters from across the nation recognized the profitable business opportunities Miami could provide with its booming population, perfect year-round climate, cooperative law enforcement, and mutual understanding among otherwise rival gangs. The promise of an open city, free from familiar encumbrances and restrictions, prompted eager mobsters from around the country to migrate south and trade in their suits and fedoras for swim trunks and flip-flops. Organized Crime in Miami examines the considerable yet heavily underpublicized involvement of the American Mafia in South Florida and its lasting impact on the community through their business activities, both illegal and within the confines of the law.

The Chicago Outfit
9780738523262
Regular price $23.99 Sale price $16.79 Save 30%Chicago's legacy of organized crime is legendary. Through a vivid and visually stunning collection of images author John Binder tells the story of the people and places of the world of organized crime in the center of the midwest.
No business, legitimate or otherwise, has had a more raucous influence on the history of a city than that of the Outfit in Chicago. From the roots of organized crime in the late 19th century to the present day, The Chicago Outfit examines the evolution of the city's underworld, focusing on their business activities and leadership along with the violence and political protection they employed to become the most successful of the Cosa Nostra crime families. Through a vivid and visually stunning collection of images, many of which are published here for the first time, author John Binder tells the story of the people and places of the world of organized crime from a fresh and informed point of view.

Detroit's Infamous Purple Gang
9780738552385
Regular price $24.99 Sale price $17.49 Save 30%Beginning as a group of delinquents committing petty crimes, they became Detroit's infamous Purple Gang, of one of the most notorious organized crime groups of the 20th century.
The photographs in this fascinating collection chronologically follow the evolution of the Purples from their days as a juvenile street gang through their rise to power and eventual self-destruction. Detroit had a gold rush atmosphere and a thriving black market during the 1920s that attracted gangsters and unsavory characters from all over the country. The gang's reputation for hijacking and terror spread far, and they became associates with Al Capone, their location a perfect midway point to smuggle Canadian whisky across the border and down into Chicago. Their reputation was such that they were even suspected by the FBI for being involved with the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. Using rare police department mug shots and group photographs, the book transports readers through the dark side of Prohibition-era Detroit history.

1960s Austin Gangsters
9781626198401
Regular price $21.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
The Boston Mob Guide
9781609494209
Regular price $19.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%Boston journalists Beverly Ford and Stephanie Schorow navigate the backrooms and seedy hangouts throughout the real story of Boston's gangster past.
The capture of notorious mobster James "Whitey" Bulger closed an infamous chapter in Boston history, yet the city's criminal underworld has a long and bloody rap sheet that stretches back to the beginning of the twentieth century. Ford and Schorow reveal the underbelly of Boston through profiles of ruthless gangsters like Charles "King" Solomon, the Angiulo brothers, Joseph "The Animal" Barboza, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi and many more who carried out deadly hits and lucrative heists.

Philadelphia Organized Crime in the 1920s and 1930s
9781467121170
Regular price $24.99 Sale price $17.49 Save 30%Philadelphia Organized Crime in the 1920s and 1930s explores a little-known but spirited chapter of the Quaker City's history.
The hoodlums, hucksters, and racketeers of Prohibition-era Philadelphia sold bootleg booze, peddled illicit drugs, ran numbers, and operated prostitution and insurance rings. Among the fascinating personalities that created and contributed to the Philadelphia crime scene of the 1920s and 1930s were empire builders like Mickey Duffy, known as Prohibition's Mr. Big, and Max Boo Boo Hoff, dubbed the King of the Bootleggers; the violent Lanzetti brothers, who ran their own illegal enterprise; mobster Harry Nig Rosen Stromberg, a New York transplant; and the arsenic widows poison ring, which specialized in fraud and murder. Bringing to light rare photographs and forgotten characters, the authors chronicle the underworld of Philadelphia in the interwar era. The upheaval caused by the gangs and groups herein mirrors the frenzied cultural and political shifts of the Roaring Twenties and the austere 1930s.

Milwaukee Mafia
9780738594439
Regular price $24.99 Sale price $17.49 Save 30%Milwaukee is best known for its beer - and rightfully so. But in the days of Prohibition, the big alcohol suppliers were not Miller, Blatz, Schlitz, and Pabst.
The Mafia had control, and it made its money by running alcohol as far away as Canada and Indiana, as well as with counterfeiting, the numbers racket, and two of the biggest heists in American history. From then on, the sky was the limit, as the Mafia indulged in extortion, protection rackets, and skimming from Las Vegas casinos. The Cream City had its crooked lawyers, corrupt cops, and even a mayor on the take. There was the blood of those who dared to stand in the syndicate's way, who were found dead in ditches or as victims of car bombs. The members of the Mafia included doctors, real estate men, restaurateurs, tavern owners, funeral directors, union presidents, and the most famous Milwaukee gangster of all, Frank Balistrieri. While now considered extinct, the Milwaukee Family was once a dominant force in the Midwest.

Early Organized Crime in Detroit
9781467117548
Regular price $21.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%Social scientist and crime writer James A. Buccellato explores Detroit's struggle with gang violence, public corruption and the politics of vice during the tumultuous first half of the twentieth century.
Though detectives denied it, the Italian mafia was operating in Detroit as early as 1900, and the city was forever changed. Bootleggers controlled the Detroit River and created a national distribution network for illegal booze during Prohibition. Gangsters, cops and even celebrities fell victim to the violence. Some politicians and prominent businessmen like Henry Ford's right-hand man, Harry Bennett, collaborated closely with the mafia, while others, such as popular radio host Gerald Buckley, fought back and lost their lives.

The Society of the Banana in Ohio
9781467152006
Regular price $23.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
Boston Organized Crime
9780738576732
Regular price $24.99 Sale price $17.49 Save 30%
Motor City Mafia
9780738540849
Regular price $24.99 Sale price $17.49 Save 30%Learn the story behind one of Detroit's most infamous mobs with rare photographs documenting their rise and fall.
Motor City Mafia: A Century of Organized Crime in Detroit chronicles the storied and hallowed gangland history of the notorious Detroit underworld. Scott M. Burnstein takes the reader inside the belly of the beast, tracking the bloodshed, exploits, and leadership of the southeast Michigan crime syndicate as never before seen in print. Through a stunning array of rare archival photographs and images, Motor City Mafia captures Detroit's most infamous past, from its inception in the early part of the 20th century, through the years when the iconic Purple Gang ruled the city's streets during Prohibition, through the 1930s and the formation of the local Italian mafia, and the Detroit crime family's glory days in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, all the way to the downfall of the area's mob reign in the 1980s and 1990s.

Ohio's Black Hand Syndicate
9781467139762
Regular price $24.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%Organized crime was born in the back of a fruit store in Marion. Before America saw headlines about the Capone Mob, the Purple Gang and Murder Inc., the specter of the Black Hand terrorized nearly every major city.
Fears that the Mafia had reached our shores and infiltrated every Italian immigrant community kept police alert and citizens on edge. It was only a matter of time before these professed Robin Hoods formed a band. And when they did, the eyes of the world turned to Ohio, particularly when the local Black Hand outfit known as the Society of the Banana went on trial. Authors David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker unfold this first and nearly forgotten chapter on crime syndicate history.

Prohibition in Columbus, Ohio
9781467137218
Regular price $21.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
Baltimore Prohibition
9781625858429
Regular price $21.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%Explore the fasciniating history of Prohibition in one of the places where it was most defied-- Baltimore, Maryland.
There was perhaps no region more opposed to Prohibition than Baltimore and Maryland. The Free State was defiant in its protest from thoroughly wet Governor Albert Ritchie to esteemed Catholic Cardinal James Gibbons. Maryland was the only state to not pass a "baby" Volstead enforcement act. Speakeasies emerged at Frostburg's Gunter Hotel and at Baltimore's famed Belvedere Hotel, whose famous owls' blinking eyes would notify its patrons if it was safe to indulge in bootleg liquor. Rumrunners were frequent on the Chesapeake Bay as bootleggers populated the city streets. Journalist H.L. Mencken, known as the "Sage of Baltimore," drew national attention criticizing the new law. Author Michael T. Walsh presents this colorful history.
