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Dream Room: Tales of the Dixie Mafia
Chet Nicholson's breakout true-crime book is a thrilling tale that takes the reader inside the infamous Dixie Mafia. The band of loosely organized criminals operated throughout the states of the old Confederacy. The more violent of their number robbed, burgled, extorted, and murdered throughout the South; while the kinder and gentler wing of the gang preferred gambling, liquor, and prostitution.
- GenresTrue CrimeCrime
346 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 27, 2023
Interesting story of organized crime, corruption and murder
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This review is from: Dream Room: Tales of the Dixie Mafia (Kindle Edition) written by an attorney who represented Mike Gillich and others. The Dream Room was a club in Biloxi, Ms owned by Gilich. One of the three more notorious criminal enterprises in Biloxi. The other two being the Show Club - Jeanette Acevido, Garriga, Woodall, Christian, etc. and the Gringo Room - Dewey D'Angelo. A fourth, D. J. Venus' Stereo Lounge, was more low key but still part of the criminal scene. Of course there were others as well in that wide open city but these four were the main ones which had come to my attention over the years.
I have reviewed several books by authors whose story telling ability was not matched by their writing skills. That is not a problem here. The actual writing is fine. Some passages are even elegant. The subject matter is interesting. It is of particular interest to me as I spent several years as an intelligence analyst and investigator in Mississippi. I still found much of it tedious and skimmed over several parts which were not really material to the story.
I did learn personal details about the lives of major criminals, Henry Cook Salisbury and Mike Gillich. Despite being subtitled, Tales of the Dixie Mafia, the author writes about only a small part of that large, amorphous group of criminals. Some of the main criminals living and working along the Gulf Coast are not even obliquely referred to even though Gillich and Salisbury were closely associated with many of these people. The author also leaves the impression that with the death of Salisbury and the downfall of Gillich, the Dixie Mafia faded away. That is far from the case. In fact, just a couple of years ago, one of the associates was buying jewelry from me at our little store in Byram, Ms until I finally let him know that I knew who he was.
The group was and is much larger than Mississippi and Louisiana, reaching well beyond the traditional borders of Dixie. I find it intriguing that the TV series Justified features the Dixie Mafia as one of the criminal enterprises opposed by Deputy U. S. Marshal Raylan Givens. Over the years the Dixie Mafia has also been closely associated with the Marcello Family of New Orleans, sometimes providing people to perform various criminal jobs for them. I can assure you that this is true despite some federal law enforcement agencies' denials that there was any connection between the Dixie Mafia and the actual Mafia. For many years a high ranking FBI official made speeches denying that Marcello and the Mafia were active in Mississippi despite this being obviously untrue. He also squelched a detailed report to the contrary by one of his agents saying words to the effect that he didn't want to see anymore trash like that. Though I don't believe he phrased it that politely.
It may be of interest to some readers to note that many consider Carlos Marcello to have been the most powerful Mafia boss in the United States. Some claim an involvement by the Marcello family with the assassination of President Kennedy.
The book seems overly sympathetic to Gillich and other dangerous criminals. It is far beyond the halfway point before the author acknowledges that Gillich was a major criminal. The book has a very weak and overly long ending which tries to leave Mike and Francis Gillich with something akin to a happy ending. The author either does not know or chose not to reveal the extent of Gillich's criminal enterprises. On the positive side there is a considerable amount of interesting detail about some criminals and politicians. The murders of Judge Vincent Sherry and his wife Margaret are an important part of the book. The background, including the scam operated from inside the Louisiana State Prison at Angola, by Kirksey McCord Nix, Jr., is covered in some detail. Incredibly, the scam conning homosexuals netted hundreds of thousands of dollars before the theft of about a hundred thousand dollars led to murder.
A point of interest to me is the information that the small house owned by Gillich is supposedly the site of Jeanette Garriga's suicide. Unless there were two women named Jeanette married to or otherwise associated with Garriga, this woman would be better known as Jeanette Acevido, a club owner and important Dixie Mafia figure in her own right. A longtime Mississippi Highway Patrol investigator and I both looked into her alleged suicide, both of us unconvinced that it was suicide. The death occured in Greene county at a fish camp owned by her sister, not in the small house owned by Gillich in Harrison county. I wanted to discuss this with the author but discovered that he is deceased. If anyone reading this has any information about Jeanette Garriga/Acevido/Woodall/Christian, etc., Jim Blackwell or Dewey D'Angelo, I would really like to hear it. This book is written in the style of a novel and some of the names and details have been changed but I see no reason why the location of Jeanette's death would be one of them. Surely she didn't die in Harrison county and the body moved to Greene county. But with the lack of forensic investigation.... She was supposedly dead and buried for some weeks before I even knew about it.
Another book about the Dixie Mafia and the murders of Judge Vincent Sherry and his wife Margaret is MISSISSIPPI MUD, SOUTHERN JUSTICE AND THE DIXIE MAFIA by Edward Humes.
Verified Purchase
This review is from: Dream Room: Tales of the Dixie Mafia (Kindle Edition) written by an attorney who represented Mike Gillich and others. The Dream Room was a club in Biloxi, Ms owned by Gilich. One of the three more notorious criminal enterprises in Biloxi. The other two being the Show Club - Jeanette Acevido, Garriga, Woodall, Christian, etc. and the Gringo Room - Dewey D'Angelo. A fourth, D. J. Venus' Stereo Lounge, was more low key but still part of the criminal scene. Of course there were others as well in that wide open city but these four were the main ones which had come to my attention over the years.
I have reviewed several books by authors whose story telling ability was not matched by their writing skills. That is not a problem here. The actual writing is fine. Some passages are even elegant. The subject matter is interesting. It is of particular interest to me as I spent several years as an intelligence analyst and investigator in Mississippi. I still found much of it tedious and skimmed over several parts which were not really material to the story.
I did learn personal details about the lives of major criminals, Henry Cook Salisbury and Mike Gillich. Despite being subtitled, Tales of the Dixie Mafia, the author writes about only a small part of that large, amorphous group of criminals. Some of the main criminals living and working along the Gulf Coast are not even obliquely referred to even though Gillich and Salisbury were closely associated with many of these people. The author also leaves the impression that with the death of Salisbury and the downfall of Gillich, the Dixie Mafia faded away. That is far from the case. In fact, just a couple of years ago, one of the associates was buying jewelry from me at our little store in Byram, Ms until I finally let him know that I knew who he was.
The group was and is much larger than Mississippi and Louisiana, reaching well beyond the traditional borders of Dixie. I find it intriguing that the TV series Justified features the Dixie Mafia as one of the criminal enterprises opposed by Deputy U. S. Marshal Raylan Givens. Over the years the Dixie Mafia has also been closely associated with the Marcello Family of New Orleans, sometimes providing people to perform various criminal jobs for them. I can assure you that this is true despite some federal law enforcement agencies' denials that there was any connection between the Dixie Mafia and the actual Mafia. For many years a high ranking FBI official made speeches denying that Marcello and the Mafia were active in Mississippi despite this being obviously untrue. He also squelched a detailed report to the contrary by one of his agents saying words to the effect that he didn't want to see anymore trash like that. Though I don't believe he phrased it that politely.
It may be of interest to some readers to note that many consider Carlos Marcello to have been the most powerful Mafia boss in the United States. Some claim an involvement by the Marcello family with the assassination of President Kennedy.
The book seems overly sympathetic to Gillich and other dangerous criminals. It is far beyond the halfway point before the author acknowledges that Gillich was a major criminal. The book has a very weak and overly long ending which tries to leave Mike and Francis Gillich with something akin to a happy ending. The author either does not know or chose not to reveal the extent of Gillich's criminal enterprises. On the positive side there is a considerable amount of interesting detail about some criminals and politicians. The murders of Judge Vincent Sherry and his wife Margaret are an important part of the book. The background, including the scam operated from inside the Louisiana State Prison at Angola, by Kirksey McCord Nix, Jr., is covered in some detail. Incredibly, the scam conning homosexuals netted hundreds of thousands of dollars before the theft of about a hundred thousand dollars led to murder.
A point of interest to me is the information that the small house owned by Gillich is supposedly the site of Jeanette Garriga's suicide. Unless there were two women named Jeanette married to or otherwise associated with Garriga, this woman would be better known as Jeanette Acevido, a club owner and important Dixie Mafia figure in her own right. A longtime Mississippi Highway Patrol investigator and I both looked into her alleged suicide, both of us unconvinced that it was suicide. The death occured in Greene county at a fish camp owned by her sister, not in the small house owned by Gillich in Harrison county. I wanted to discuss this with the author but discovered that he is deceased. If anyone reading this has any information about Jeanette Garriga/Acevido/Woodall/Christian, etc., Jim Blackwell or Dewey D'Angelo, I would really like to hear it. This book is written in the style of a novel and some of the names and details have been changed but I see no reason why the location of Jeanette's death would be one of them. Surely she didn't die in Harrison county and the body moved to Greene county. But with the lack of forensic investigation.... She was supposedly dead and buried for some weeks before I even knew about it.
Another book about the Dixie Mafia and the murders of Judge Vincent Sherry and his wife Margaret is MISSISSIPPI MUD, SOUTHERN JUSTICE AND THE DIXIE MAFIA by Edward Humes.
May 16, 2012
Dramatization of true events (as told to the author by those he's writing about, Mike Gillith & Frances Salisbury Gillith). I plan to follow this (though not immediately) with Mississippi Mud by Edward Humes.
Places and names of people in this book are somewhat familiar to me, though my parents left Mississippi in mid-1950s, not to return until 1988. Lots of people living here now, of course, still remember all these events. It's interesting to listen to their memories about these times.
Places and names of people in this book are somewhat familiar to me, though my parents left Mississippi in mid-1950s, not to return until 1988. Lots of people living here now, of course, still remember all these events. It's interesting to listen to their memories about these times.
November 15, 2021
A strong literary effort, well composed and well written. Nicholson had a good ear for lowlife diction and dialog as well as a first-hand grasp of the underworld subject matter. Also a fine sense of the Southern environment. The passage describing the life cycle of a hurricane is a standalone gem. Don't be put off by the cover.
November 16, 2020
There must be a story in here somewhere
They just didn't seem like the book had any flow. Stand alone chapters that never seemed to come up again. This was simply a very difficult book to follow smoothly. Disappointed. But as always, I read to the last page. Even that was a disappointment.
They just didn't seem like the book had any flow. Stand alone chapters that never seemed to come up again. This was simply a very difficult book to follow smoothly. Disappointed. But as always, I read to the last page. Even that was a disappointment.
July 14, 2021
Read this as a follow up to Mississippi Mud, which exposed the Dixie Mafia. Dream Room examines some of the escapades of a few of the Mafia members. In combination, the two books provided a fairly in-depth examination of the loosely organized crime ring based in Mississippi. This book was entertaining and fairly well written.
January 28, 2023
I read this as a precursor to The Biloxi Boys. I wonder if I haven’t ruined the book now that I know how the trial turns out.
Oh and crime definitely didn’t pay
Oh and crime definitely didn’t pay
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 17, 2021
This book was recommended to me to read by a coworker that I worked with (at the time) in Bay st Louis, Ms. I was told that I would like it because I knew many of the areas that are discussed in the book. I like the book because of the many subplots and chapters that flow in and out of the book. I have been to most of the areas discussed in the chapters even if casually drive through them. There is a chapter on the gypsies that would live around St tammany parish. There is a chapter dealing with some of the gambling that took place up in Purvis, Ms. I knew nothing about any of those events discussed although I had been through those areas many times before. While I'm not sure sure how accurate the information was in the book, I can say it was an interesting read nonetheless.
November 5, 2009
Starts slow but gets better as the characters are developed. As my mother (who is now reading the book) said "there are some really sick people out there". Sadly, one of them was a former mayor of Biloxi.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews