Kill the Dutchman!: The Story of Dutch Schultz

by Paul Sann, Pete Hamill (Preface), T.J. English (Introduction)

On October 23, 1935, a rusty, steel-jacketed .45 slug tore through the body of 33-year-old Dutch Schultz. It was no accident. Schultz, the Beer Baron of The Bronx who reaped $2 million a month as king of Harlem's numbers racket, had gone too far, having threatened to murder Thomas E. Dewey—the racket’s prosecutor who’d drawn up the tax indictment against him. The result was the biggest gangland execution since the 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Al Capone's Chicago.

Schultz didn’t die instantly, lingering over a day, a police stenographer at his bedside recording every word. Dutch’s surrealistic, Joycean stream-of-consciousness deathbed ramblings are reproduced in full and Sann explores the meaning of the poetic jumble of his last words: “I am a pretty good pretzeler [sic], Please crack down on the Chinaman’s friends and Hitler’s commander,” and his most majestic utterance, “Mother is the best bet and don’t let Satan draw you too fast.”

In this 1930s real-life whodunit, legendary New York newspaperman Paul Sann investigates the meteoric rise of gangster Dutch Schultz, mean-streaked bully, alleged killer and reader of books, tracking the blood-flecked story from the Lower East Side and Bronx sidewalks to Broadway night spots to lavish Park Ave. penthouses and, ultimately, to City Hall—along the way uncovering the truces and alliances among politicians, judges, police, unions and racketeers.

“A masterpiece! . . . [Sann] makes us understand how the big cities of America worked in the years between the wars.”
–Pete Hamill, author of Snow in August, A Drinking Life and Forever

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, History, Crime, Biography

347 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1971

Reviews

[Malcolm Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in a journalist argot reminiscent of Walter Winchell on the tv series The Untouchables.
The book starts with the slaying of Dutch Schultz.Then described the rackets he was involved in,his digital on tax charges,details of his assassins and their fate.A very entertaining book.

[Maggie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not Kindle edition. Read from the book.

Very disappointed. I did not finish the book. It was so full of name dropping that I could not keep track and the names meant little to me.

[Mandy Holzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read

Entertaining and educational. The author writes in a very conversational and sometimes humourous tone. Goes in depth about different relationships within organized crime.

[Christopher Mattick · Rating 4 out of 5]

No wife. No horse. No mustache.

[Lama · Rating 3 out of 5]

I purchased this book 4 years ago when i was so into dutch schultz life during and after the prohibition. And i read it 4 years later lol, i thought it was a bio on him but it turned out to be about his assassination by the murder inc. very interesting book and excellently written.

[Walt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably the best book on Dutch Schultz.