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Murder City: The Bloody History of Chicago in the Twenties
Michael Lesy's portrait of a gruesome era could be fiction but it's not. "Things began as they usually did: Someone shot someone else." So begins a chapter of Michael Lesy's disturbingly satisfying account of Chicago in the 1920s, the epicenter of murder in America. A city where daily newspapers fell over each other to cover the latest mayhem. A city where professionals and amateurs alike snuffed one another out, and often for the most banal of reasons, such as wanting a Packard twin-six. Men killing men, men killing women, women killing mencrimes of loot and love. Just as Lesy's first book, Wisconsin Death Trip , subverted the accepted notion of the Gay Nineties, so Murder City gives us the dark side of the Jazz Age. Lesy's sharp, fearless storytelling makes a compelling case that this collection of criminals may be the progenitors of our modern age. 60 illustrations
344 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2007
34 people are currently reading
722 people want to read
About the author
Michael Lesy
24 books38 followersMichael Lesy’s books include Angel’s World and Long Time Coming. In 2006 he was named one of the first United States Artists Fellowship recipients, and in 2013 was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. A professor of literary journalism at Hampshire College; he lives in Massachusetts.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
May 2, 2020
The repetition of certain things led me to downgrade this to 3-3 1/2. They were the fact that women were not on the juries and that amounts should be multiplied tenfold for today's values. He could have just pointed these things out at the beginning of the book. No women served on Chicago (and possibly all Illinois) juries until 1939 when the law was changed. Presumably because even Illinois lawmakers could see that there would soon be a lot fewer men to serve on juries. Instead he points them out in EVERY chapter. Monotonous and waste of space.
And he does not talk about Leopold and Loeb trial or the St. Valentine's Day Massacre - they have been done to death. He presents the cases in chronological order. He does include the real characters involved in Maurine Watkins's play Chicago, who she had originally written about for the Tribune. I actually thought Douglas Perry did a better job in The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers who Inspired Chicago.
I was quite surprised to read of murder at Northwestern. I guess the freshmen and sophomores used to have a "riot" night where they attacked each other and tied each other up (hopefully someone untied them). This was a case where one freshman from Evanston/Skokie didn't turn up. A big search was on, dragging Lake Michigan, looking under the piers, amongst the rocks, etc. He was eventually found under the one of the piers, in a situation that he couldn't have put himself in. Buried under rocks. Most of the piers are gone now but I remember spending many an hour on the Lee Street pier and rocks. The way Lesy presented the case it was quite probable that the president/dean's son and friends may have been the culprit(s). So it really came across as town vs. gown. But the evidence was so muddied by inept cops, both from Evanston and Chicago, that there was no way to prove anything.
Another interesting case from Wisconsin, presented primarily because of how much space it took up in the Chicago papers. A young woman thought she was pregnant and a young man who was attending college obviously didn't want to mess up his life by being stuck with a "hick" farm girl from back home. His father bought his way out of previous messes he had been in. They eventually found her body and he disappeared.
Some of the famous gangsters are covered - Hymie Weiss, Dean O'Bannion, etc.
It was a pretty interesting book but as a former Chicagoan there were some I knew about and others I'd never heard of. And I got excited when he talked about one of my favorite movie theaters was mentioned - The Granada for showing Chicago when it first opened - a theater in the Spanish style that was large enough to accommodate large audiences. It also opened at the Marbro on the South side of town. This was a set-up for a burglary/killing at the Ritz in Berwyn where four young men held up a theater for $700. They wound up getting $175 apiece. Unfortunately a gun went off and a young lady on her off night was killed.
And he does not talk about Leopold and Loeb trial or the St. Valentine's Day Massacre - they have been done to death. He presents the cases in chronological order. He does include the real characters involved in Maurine Watkins's play Chicago, who she had originally written about for the Tribune. I actually thought Douglas Perry did a better job in The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers who Inspired Chicago.
I was quite surprised to read of murder at Northwestern. I guess the freshmen and sophomores used to have a "riot" night where they attacked each other and tied each other up (hopefully someone untied them). This was a case where one freshman from Evanston/Skokie didn't turn up. A big search was on, dragging Lake Michigan, looking under the piers, amongst the rocks, etc. He was eventually found under the one of the piers, in a situation that he couldn't have put himself in. Buried under rocks. Most of the piers are gone now but I remember spending many an hour on the Lee Street pier and rocks. The way Lesy presented the case it was quite probable that the president/dean's son and friends may have been the culprit(s). So it really came across as town vs. gown. But the evidence was so muddied by inept cops, both from Evanston and Chicago, that there was no way to prove anything.
Another interesting case from Wisconsin, presented primarily because of how much space it took up in the Chicago papers. A young woman thought she was pregnant and a young man who was attending college obviously didn't want to mess up his life by being stuck with a "hick" farm girl from back home. His father bought his way out of previous messes he had been in. They eventually found her body and he disappeared.
Some of the famous gangsters are covered - Hymie Weiss, Dean O'Bannion, etc.
It was a pretty interesting book but as a former Chicagoan there were some I knew about and others I'd never heard of. And I got excited when he talked about one of my favorite movie theaters was mentioned - The Granada for showing Chicago when it first opened - a theater in the Spanish style that was large enough to accommodate large audiences. It also opened at the Marbro on the South side of town. This was a set-up for a burglary/killing at the Ritz in Berwyn where four young men held up a theater for $700. They wound up getting $175 apiece. Unfortunately a gun went off and a young lady on her off night was killed.
February 28, 2020
This book had so much potential, but really fell flat. It took me so long to get through because it could not hold my interest, maybe because I was expecting something else.
June 5, 2012
This book as well researched but Lesy's writing style leaves a lot to be desired. The cohesiveness of the book wasn't apparent until the end and then Lesy tries really hard to make it clear what ties the murders in this book together (other than the fact that they occurred in Chicago during the 1920s. The Mafia stuff in this book is pretty good, in fact I feel like that was his strong suit. I did like how he would mention specific people in one chapter and then they would come in another one. Not bad, but not the greatest social history I have read about Chicago.
January 20, 2008
This book was so totally disappointing. I was hoping for an essay that would help explain the patterns in crime in the city during some earlier era. Instead, it reads like a really bad version of E! in which each chapter is about someone who killed someone else. Sensationalist and pointless. Made me feel dirty for reading and not in a good way.
January 23, 2024
Less than half a century before Prohibition, Chicago nearly burned to the ground in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The City lost hundreds of lives and more than 17,000 buildings in the inferno.
In the years that followed, young entrepreneurs and architects poured into the city, rebuilding from the ashes the skyline recognized around the world. In the nine years after the fire, the City’s population grew by sixty-four percent, with most of that increase being young people looking to make a buck in a brand new city.
The author of this book says, ‘Chicago in the twenties may not have been Sophocles’ Thebes, and the nightmare fables its most grotesque murders became may have had characters more twisted than tragic, but the city and its homicides—now almost ninety years in the past—have become as much a part of America’s bloody mythology as Kennedy in Dallas, Custer at Little Bighorn, and the fall of the Twin Towers…’
During the 1920s, Chicago was the scene of three persistent and enduring homicidal performances:
1) Leopold and Loeb’s killing of Bobby Franks, their little neighbour boy;
2) the St. Valentine’s Day massacre of members of the Moran gang by a firing squad of Capone men dressed as police detectives and patrolmen; and
3) the two man killers who became “Velma” and “Roxie Hart” in Maurine Watkins’s play Chicago.
There were other cities—Birmingham and Memphis, Nashville and New Orleans—that had homicide rates many, many times higher than Chicago’s.
But Chicago was America’s second largest city—after New York.
The contrast—and the competition—between the two cities had an effect on the way America perceived Chicago.
In 1924, the year Chicago’s homicide rate was 24 % higher than the national urban average, New York’s was 31 % below that average.
Seventeen chapters make up this book”
1 • Carl Wanderer
2 • Cora Isabelle Orthwein
3 • Harvey Church
4 • Catherwood
5 • Roach and Mosby
6 • Arthur, Eleanor, and Kate
7 • The Banker
8 • Leighton Mount
9 • Fred-Frances
10 • Duffy Double Murder
11 • Belva and Beulah
12 • Assassins
13 • Hymie Weiss
14 • Christ’s Dream
15 • Diamond Joe
16 • Pearl
17 • Three Murders
The stories in this book have been told in chronological order. Their advancement forms a sequence; that sequence has patterns, obvious and implied.
These patterns have a variety of meanings.
Read it for yourself. This reads almost like fiction, but it is not.
In the years that followed, young entrepreneurs and architects poured into the city, rebuilding from the ashes the skyline recognized around the world. In the nine years after the fire, the City’s population grew by sixty-four percent, with most of that increase being young people looking to make a buck in a brand new city.
The author of this book says, ‘Chicago in the twenties may not have been Sophocles’ Thebes, and the nightmare fables its most grotesque murders became may have had characters more twisted than tragic, but the city and its homicides—now almost ninety years in the past—have become as much a part of America’s bloody mythology as Kennedy in Dallas, Custer at Little Bighorn, and the fall of the Twin Towers…’
During the 1920s, Chicago was the scene of three persistent and enduring homicidal performances:
1) Leopold and Loeb’s killing of Bobby Franks, their little neighbour boy;
2) the St. Valentine’s Day massacre of members of the Moran gang by a firing squad of Capone men dressed as police detectives and patrolmen; and
3) the two man killers who became “Velma” and “Roxie Hart” in Maurine Watkins’s play Chicago.
There were other cities—Birmingham and Memphis, Nashville and New Orleans—that had homicide rates many, many times higher than Chicago’s.
But Chicago was America’s second largest city—after New York.
The contrast—and the competition—between the two cities had an effect on the way America perceived Chicago.
In 1924, the year Chicago’s homicide rate was 24 % higher than the national urban average, New York’s was 31 % below that average.
Seventeen chapters make up this book”
1 • Carl Wanderer
2 • Cora Isabelle Orthwein
3 • Harvey Church
4 • Catherwood
5 • Roach and Mosby
6 • Arthur, Eleanor, and Kate
7 • The Banker
8 • Leighton Mount
9 • Fred-Frances
10 • Duffy Double Murder
11 • Belva and Beulah
12 • Assassins
13 • Hymie Weiss
14 • Christ’s Dream
15 • Diamond Joe
16 • Pearl
17 • Three Murders
The stories in this book have been told in chronological order. Their advancement forms a sequence; that sequence has patterns, obvious and implied.
These patterns have a variety of meanings.
Read it for yourself. This reads almost like fiction, but it is not.
May 5, 2022
Not a great read. The writing was pretty stilted like the author was trying to impersonate Hemingway but it read fast and was mildly interesting. Find a different book if you want more depth about crime in Chicago in the 20’s.
November 16, 2017
I was looking forward to reading this - I was hoping for an overview, if not an in-depth study, of the murderous activity of the 1920's, the police force corruption, and what Chicago did in an attempt to clean up the city after the end of prohibition. I definitely didn't get that.
I got a number of murder cases which, as the author noted in his afterward, depict Chicago's, and by extension America's, "bloody mythology." The cases are listed in chronological order and include the case that became, thanks to the creative pen of a newspaper reporter, the basis for the Roxie Hart story. Why the author noted this as an afterward, rather than a forward, is unclear.
However, I think the author either developed such familiarity with his subject that he felt we had that the same comfort level, or he was writing in the style of his original news sources. The wife murder, the pregnant girlfriend murder, the car salesman murder, and the sugar daddy murders were OK, if not entertaining in a morbid soft of way, but the "mob" murders were very difficult to follow. Use of first names only, last names only, nicknames, or nephew, brother, cousin and uncle relationships made the gang battles/reprisals hard to understand. I found myself reading the same three first paragraphs of "Duffy Double Murder" over and over ... trying to figure out what who got shot when ... but then I remembered Wikipedia. Whew. So much easier...than the book.
All complements to the author for assembling an interesting collection of murder stories. There are some great photos of the perpetrators and police, so some grad student spent valuable time in the musty newspaper morgue (several photos are repeated twice in the book, but one offers a much clearer shot of a policeman rolling his eyes so hard they're about to fall out of his head - well worth that second printing).
I was sorry to see there was no analysis of what led to the huge increase in female crime that occurred in the 1920's. There was no analysis of the impact of prohibition (see earlier question). And there was no update on cleaning up the police department, which I hope happened (particularly after slogging through the mob murders). The afterward definitely underscored the issues, and did a bit of knitting the cases together, but didn't provide any results. And much of the book ignored conventional sentence structure. I'd have to say this was far less enjoyable than I expected, was difficult to read, and although a great topic, fundamentally a bit unsatisfying.
I got a number of murder cases which, as the author noted in his afterward, depict Chicago's, and by extension America's, "bloody mythology." The cases are listed in chronological order and include the case that became, thanks to the creative pen of a newspaper reporter, the basis for the Roxie Hart story. Why the author noted this as an afterward, rather than a forward, is unclear.
However, I think the author either developed such familiarity with his subject that he felt we had that the same comfort level, or he was writing in the style of his original news sources. The wife murder, the pregnant girlfriend murder, the car salesman murder, and the sugar daddy murders were OK, if not entertaining in a morbid soft of way, but the "mob" murders were very difficult to follow. Use of first names only, last names only, nicknames, or nephew, brother, cousin and uncle relationships made the gang battles/reprisals hard to understand. I found myself reading the same three first paragraphs of "Duffy Double Murder" over and over ... trying to figure out what who got shot when ... but then I remembered Wikipedia. Whew. So much easier...than the book.
All complements to the author for assembling an interesting collection of murder stories. There are some great photos of the perpetrators and police, so some grad student spent valuable time in the musty newspaper morgue (several photos are repeated twice in the book, but one offers a much clearer shot of a policeman rolling his eyes so hard they're about to fall out of his head - well worth that second printing).
I was sorry to see there was no analysis of what led to the huge increase in female crime that occurred in the 1920's. There was no analysis of the impact of prohibition (see earlier question). And there was no update on cleaning up the police department, which I hope happened (particularly after slogging through the mob murders). The afterward definitely underscored the issues, and did a bit of knitting the cases together, but didn't provide any results. And much of the book ignored conventional sentence structure. I'd have to say this was far less enjoyable than I expected, was difficult to read, and although a great topic, fundamentally a bit unsatisfying.
June 16, 2012
Non-fiction books from the 1900's - 1920's are among my favorites in non-fiction, especially when they focus on Chicago. I thought this book would be a no brainer. It started off well enough but I found the overall book very inconsistent. The chapters concerning organized crime in particular suffered from a weak writing style and I often found myself lost. Then there are other chapters where the subject was "simpler" and you could sense the book's potential (but then you get to the next chapter and realize it was only a dream).
The book was extremely well researched and it is packed with plenty of interesting trivia. The pictures were a plus.
As I was reading, I often found myself questioning "did this book have an editor?" or even " did anyone read this before it went to print?" but maybe I was just hoping that with a little editing and a little love this book could have risen from "inconsistent" to at least "good".
The book was extremely well researched and it is packed with plenty of interesting trivia. The pictures were a plus.
As I was reading, I often found myself questioning "did this book have an editor?" or even " did anyone read this before it went to print?" but maybe I was just hoping that with a little editing and a little love this book could have risen from "inconsistent" to at least "good".
March 23, 2020
THANK GOD, IT’S FINALLY OVER!
This book was entertaining, but confusing. Names would be mentioned and we would read about them for multiple pages, only to never hear those names again. Michael Lesy did not do a good job de-complicating the gangs of Chicago, and I struggled to finish the last 100 pages. It all started dragging, mainly due to my confusion. The afterword did a better job explaining the connections between certain people than the book did.
There were some deliciously good chapters. I strongly recommend #6. Arthur, Eleanor, and Kate, #9. Fred-Frances, and #11. Belva and Belulah.
Mr. Lesy also did a delightful job of intertwining the stories, so that they were all connected in an intricate net.
3/5 stars.
This book was entertaining, but confusing. Names would be mentioned and we would read about them for multiple pages, only to never hear those names again. Michael Lesy did not do a good job de-complicating the gangs of Chicago, and I struggled to finish the last 100 pages. It all started dragging, mainly due to my confusion. The afterword did a better job explaining the connections between certain people than the book did.
There were some deliciously good chapters. I strongly recommend #6. Arthur, Eleanor, and Kate, #9. Fred-Frances, and #11. Belva and Belulah.
Mr. Lesy also did a delightful job of intertwining the stories, so that they were all connected in an intricate net.
3/5 stars.
June 5, 2023
I am surprised Norton published this book. They typically expect more from their writers. Less has clearly done a lot of research to assemble this book, but that's truly what he's done, assembled it. I can't think of another book that is put together from so many quotations stuck together with so little authorial voice. It reads like a mediocre freshman essay. You get no sense of the point behind the selection of the various crimes until the Afterward. Really, the Afterward??? There's no introduction. No context. And irritatingly, it teases 2 of biggest crimes, Leopold and Loeb and the Valentines Day massacre but doesn't discuss them.
The crimes discussed are interesting and largely forgotten, which gives the book some merit, but on the whole a very disappointing read.
The crimes discussed are interesting and largely forgotten, which gives the book some merit, but on the whole a very disappointing read.
October 24, 2021
A thoroughly researched and fascinating read about the bloody history of Chicago in the twenties
I had the chance to take Michael Lesy’s literary journalism course while I was at Hampshire College, and in reading the book I was reunited with some of the advice he always peppered us with: keep things simple, don’t use adverbs, etc. His prose is sparse and to the point. He’s undoubtedly a fantastic writer.
Each case reads like a murder mystery, and, as is usually the case, fact is way stranger than fiction.
I had the chance to take Michael Lesy’s literary journalism course while I was at Hampshire College, and in reading the book I was reunited with some of the advice he always peppered us with: keep things simple, don’t use adverbs, etc. His prose is sparse and to the point. He’s undoubtedly a fantastic writer.
Each case reads like a murder mystery, and, as is usually the case, fact is way stranger than fiction.
February 23, 2025
Photohistorian Michael Lesy strings 17 1920s-spanning true crime accounts of murder and malfeasance in America's Second City, punctuated by eye-popping visual reproductions taken directly from its contemporary coverage in its legendary, readership-warring newspapers. Will give new meaning to the old joke, what's black and white and re(a)d all over?
January 28, 2019
Between the gripping writing and the terrific choice of historical photographs, this one's a keeper!
September 23, 2016
A really interesting look at one of the eras that continues to captivate American popular memory. Rather than focus on some of the stories like the Leopold and Loeb case or the St. Valentine's Day Massacre that have come to dominate the discussion of crime in Chicago area during the 1920s, Michael Lesy looks at cases that still made the headlines but have, for the most part, been forgotten. Each chapter is the story of a murder case(s). These cases range from affairs gone wrong to Prohibition related gang violence. Some of them are linked and most share the same set of lawyers, civic leaders and newspaper reporters who pull all the stories together in a really interesting tapestry. If you enjoy reading about crime, Prohibition or the musical 'Chicago', this is the book for you. ('Chicago' is actually discussed in two chapters as the writer of it gets some of the inspiration from one of the cases)
The only thing that bothered me about the book was that Lesy would sometimes write in a way that reminded me of old noir detective comics or movies, but in a way that made me have to reread the entire paragraph to understand who was doing what.
The only thing that bothered me about the book was that Lesy would sometimes write in a way that reminded me of old noir detective comics or movies, but in a way that made me have to reread the entire paragraph to understand who was doing what.
April 18, 2022
Pretty good book, touch and go type of book the way its formatted. You can definitely pick it up anytime you want some true crime historical recollection, but its bloated and dull if you try to read a lot in one sitting, which makes sense. I did not finish this book, but I plan to revisit if I feel like reading some 0f that genre again.
December 26, 2010
This wasn't exactly what I anticipated. I suspect I'm jaded by the Luc Sante book, Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York - an excellent history of all kinds of dubious activities in New York of the 1840's through the 1890's. It's social history at its best, illuminating the underground history of a major American city.
Chicago in the twenties is interesting in its own way, but perhaps most of all for the sheer amount of murders and murder trials that occurred during the time period. The tabloid press played a large role in this history as did Prohibition, changing standards of behavior for women, and the rise of the Mob. Michael Lesy focuses on murders committed by ordinary people, but rather than presenting a broad social history this book is twenty short true crime stories with nothing really connecting them. I found this disappointing.
Written in staccato bursts of language that seem to mirror the rhythms of machine gunning, the stories are too short to be anything other than superficial when presented on their own as they are here. Sprinkled with a few photos, it's also frustrating that other photos that he describes prominently in the stories aren't printed here. My disappointment may lie in my expectations and for some this may be a wonderful read, but for me it reads like any other quickly written true crime novel (ripped from the headlines in Law & Order speak). It's completely ephemeral, skipping across the surface like a mayfly, but never diving into the depths.
Chicago in the twenties is interesting in its own way, but perhaps most of all for the sheer amount of murders and murder trials that occurred during the time period. The tabloid press played a large role in this history as did Prohibition, changing standards of behavior for women, and the rise of the Mob. Michael Lesy focuses on murders committed by ordinary people, but rather than presenting a broad social history this book is twenty short true crime stories with nothing really connecting them. I found this disappointing.
Written in staccato bursts of language that seem to mirror the rhythms of machine gunning, the stories are too short to be anything other than superficial when presented on their own as they are here. Sprinkled with a few photos, it's also frustrating that other photos that he describes prominently in the stories aren't printed here. My disappointment may lie in my expectations and for some this may be a wonderful read, but for me it reads like any other quickly written true crime novel (ripped from the headlines in Law & Order speak). It's completely ephemeral, skipping across the surface like a mayfly, but never diving into the depths.
April 8, 2008
About 3/4 of this was really good. This is actually 20 or so True Crime stories based on 1920's Chicago Tribune articles and photos. The vintage photos(Lesy also did Wisconsin Death Trip) are fantastic, I'd call most of them Courthouse or Jailhouse portraits. However, the photos should have been reproduced on glossy paper instead of the same paper as the text. The good 3/4 are unrelated stories mostly about women killing their husbands/boyfriends and vice versa and other poorly executed crimes. The other 1/4 are organized crime/corrupt politician stories that are not as interesting and don't fit in with the rest of the book. The author unconvincingly tries to tie everything together throughout the whole book, especially bad in the terrible afterword. I'm guessing he did this so he could pretend this is a History book rather then a collection of True Crime stories and impress his faculty colleagues. His several pages of acknowledgements make him seem like a self-absorbed blowhard. Also annoying was that nearly every time(probably 20-25 times) an amount of money is mentioned the author explains that in today's dollars this would be a larger amount of money, anyone too stupid to figure that out probably can't read either, maybe he's too used to moronic students at the college he teaches at. Skip the organized crime parts and the afterword and this would be excellent.
November 11, 2013
Although this covers a lot more events and generally does a good job of relaying the facts, I liked The Girls of Murder City better because that one felt more cohesive and because I got a feel for the author's perspective. This book feels like a series of newspaper articles rather than a book, where the author is just trying to throw out the facts in an entertaining fashion. The frequent and well-integrated photographs just add to that impression.
I also got lost a lot in the gangster chapters, where there are a lot of names to keep track of and, since you don't get a feel for the various personalities involved, I found that more of a challenge than I usually do. The occasionally stream-of-consciousness writing style doesn't help. OTOH, the writing style didn't annoy me as much as I thought it would, either. While there are a couple of overused stylistic quirks, for the most part the style is very clean and easy to read.
I also got lost a lot in the gangster chapters, where there are a lot of names to keep track of and, since you don't get a feel for the various personalities involved, I found that more of a challenge than I usually do. The occasionally stream-of-consciousness writing style doesn't help. OTOH, the writing style didn't annoy me as much as I thought it would, either. While there are a couple of overused stylistic quirks, for the most part the style is very clean and easy to read.
Read
November 10, 2009As is typical in these types of books, he got a little preachy at the end about his interpretation of the events he's writing about. However, he wasn't too bad about it. Overall, the book was really good. While he brought up the murders of Dean O'Banion and other gangland killings, the bigger focus was on the "regular" murders that were dotting the papers in those years. I liked that he just told us what happened and who was involved in as good a narrative as possible with the information available, but did not try to add info or focus only on cases that made folks look good or bad. He told of cases that were solved, given up on, and "solved" with a lot of doubt left behind. Cases ranged from a hazing death of a Northwestern student to the case that inspired Chicago. Definitely a fun read.
April 13, 2016
Michael Lesy wrote one of my favorite books, Wisconsin Death Trip, an eerie and unsettling album of photos, news items, and other ephemera from Wisconsin in a particularly mysterious period of its history, the late 1800s-early 1900s. Murder City is a more straightforward look at Chicago in the murderous 1920s. Instead of focusing on the usual Al Capone crimes, it veers more toward other crimes that marked the city at the time, some spectacular, some mundane, not all of which are solved. At bottom, they often provide a melancholy look at people whose lives were somehow thwarted or tragic in an era when Chicago seemed like a city wide open for just about anything to happen. Less writes in a staccato style that fits the cases--it brings a certain noir quality to each case, as if he were the hard-bitten detective reporting the facts. That often makes the story even more effective.
Read
March 1, 2011This book reads like an interview with a south-side, blue collar guy. It tends to get a bit crazy with the name dropping, but once you learn the extensive cast of characters, it's an extraordinarily interesting read.
Although this focuses on the violence and murder of the Chicago 1920s, it does not deal with the Leopold and Loeb murder of Bobby Franks, nor does it deal with the St. Valentine's Day massacre. The reason given was that these two cases have been covered in such great detail that there is nothing more that Lesy believed he could add. My thanks to Mr. Lesy! The mention of Leopold and Loeb is made in reference to time and those involved in the case.
Highly recommend, if you like true crime.
Although this focuses on the violence and murder of the Chicago 1920s, it does not deal with the Leopold and Loeb murder of Bobby Franks, nor does it deal with the St. Valentine's Day massacre. The reason given was that these two cases have been covered in such great detail that there is nothing more that Lesy believed he could add. My thanks to Mr. Lesy! The mention of Leopold and Loeb is made in reference to time and those involved in the case.
Highly recommend, if you like true crime.
August 15, 2011
History told with newspapers and photos of the day, in this case of various murders and crimes in Chicago, by the author of Wisconsin Death Trip. Chicago in the 20s had a much higher murder rate than New York or any other major city (there were smaller cities with as much murder but no other big cities.) Some of this can be explained by the fact that the police department had been corrupt for years. He gets right down to cases with an account of a man who suddenly decided to kill his wife so he could re-enlist in the Army, then a woman who shot her lover. Of course Capone and his cohorts appear. Illustrated with great old photos. If you like this kind of thing, this is the kind of thing you will like.
August 8, 2012
Murder City was not exactly what i thought it was going to be; however it was still a good read and I enjoyed it.
The way it was written was that each chapter focused on a particular person or crime, which made it easy to pick up and put down again without getting confused or lost in a story. There was also a decent amount of time dealing with woman and crimes and how easy it seemed for them to get off, despite the obvious guilt. Several stories were tied together, which I liked, most of them were mob related.
I was delightfully surprised that the stories about the two women who inspired the writing of the musical "Chicago" were in this book!
The way it was written was that each chapter focused on a particular person or crime, which made it easy to pick up and put down again without getting confused or lost in a story. There was also a decent amount of time dealing with woman and crimes and how easy it seemed for them to get off, despite the obvious guilt. Several stories were tied together, which I liked, most of them were mob related.
I was delightfully surprised that the stories about the two women who inspired the writing of the musical "Chicago" were in this book!
September 10, 2007
I liked the info in this book but it's riddled with a lot of inaccuracies that make it difficult to accept as fact. The author does a nice job of keeping the reader abreast of the incredible amount of murder trials going on in Chicago in the 1920s, which gives a real "you are there" feel to the book, but I don't think I read one chapter that wasn't wrong in some of its details, and more than once the author contradicts himself in the same chapter. A little more careful research (and editing) would have gone a long way.
February 17, 2009
I really enjoyed this book. This was another find from the library and was in their recommended Chicago history books. It went through various cases in Chicago in the twenties. It skipped two obvious cases Leopold and Loeb and The St Valentine's Day Massacre. I enjoyed this book because it told how they figured out the cases including telling when the police coerced confessions and how the cases went down in court. All in all this was a very entertaining read for fans of 1920's history and true crime like myself.
January 27, 2014
A fascinating look at murder cases in Chicago from throughout the 1920s, ranging from domestic disputes and robberies gone wrong to some of the famous gangland slayings that are part of Chicago legend. There was obviously tons of research that went into this, and you definitely get an idea of what life was like at the time, what interested and affected people, how the legal system approached the various cases, how politics influenced everything, and how attitudes about crime progressed as the city became more and more violent. Really interesting stuff, and it makes me want to learn more.
January 7, 2013
This is an entertaining and informative reexamination of some of Chicago's more infamous murder cases. Lesy looks at well-known cases such as the deaths of gangsters Dion O'Banion and Hymie Weiss, as well as some that have been largely forgotten, such as the story of Carl Wanderer and the vanishing of Northwestern University student Leighton Mount. Lesy tells these tales in a hard-boiled, matter-of-fact style. The pleasure he obviously took in writing this book is infectious.
March 5, 2016
While the topic of this book was interesting, the writing style made it almost impossible to get into. The author overuses to the extreme short, clipped sentences that seem intended to make the material more sensational and dramatic. This, combined with the dry lists of facts and the continuous repetition (we were told at least a dozen times that the modern equivalent of money is at least ten times the value in 1920s dollars) made each chapter seem to drag on forever.
March 23, 2009
This book had so much potential to be interesting, but the poor writing style and the CONSTANT reminders that 1920's monetary values are approximately 1/10th of todays values turned me off.
Also annoying was the author's habit of referring to photos that were published in the 1920's Chicago newspapers, but then not including them in the text of the book.
Also annoying was the author's habit of referring to photos that were published in the 1920's Chicago newspapers, but then not including them in the text of the book.
January 5, 2010
A great book, though some of the snippets can be very depressing. Shows how hard it was to get a murder conviction in court before modern forensics. Covers all the big murder cases in Chicago in the twenties from starlet murders to the mob (including the dual murders that inspired the play Chicago).
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