Dirty Phenix: Birth of the Dixie Mafia

by HL Arledge

Dirty Birth of the Dixie Mafia is book one in a new true crime series from acclaimed investigative journalist HL Arledge, author of the Bayou Justice series and newspaper column. Inside, learn how a city’s corruption led to the rise of a burlesque icon, a political assassination, and the birth of the Dixie Mafia. This story begins in Georgia and Alabama, but it ends on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, home of Carlos Marcello and the New Orleans Mafia.

315 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 2, 2022

Reviews

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Books covering the history of the Dixie mafia are few and far between, as if organized crime in the twentieth century had been limited to Chicago and the Atlantic seaboard. Dirty Phénix fills in this space between nicely: Arlen builds on the research gathered by a couple of stringers out of Birmingham, packing the book with blood-chilling stories of corruption connecting everyone from the B-girls straight to the racketeers and mobsters up to the sheriffs, commissioners, and state attorneys general.

I’m moving on directly to the next book in this series, “Dirty Bourbon,” which covers the history of the mob in New Orleans.

This is a must-read for anybody interested in organized crime in America, the history of the Deep South, and the connections between vice rackets and military bases.