Among the many ordinary and not-so-ordinary murderers we meet is Harvey Church, a young fellow who killed two men for the sake of a Packard Twin-six. Young Harvey persuaded a Packard salesman and a mechanic to deliver the big, new car to his mother's house. Harvey killed both men, left their bodies in the basement, then went out for a spin in "his" new car with his mother and her lady friends.

We get to know Belva Gaertner and Beulah Annan. Both women shot their lovers. Belva shot her boyfriend in the head. Beulah shot hers in the back. Both claimed self-defense. Both beat their raps. Their real stories are more unsettling than the fairy tales they became in the wildly successful Broadway musical Chicago.

And then there's Hymie Weiss, otherwise know as "the perfume bandit." Hymie made any number of mistakes. One was to torture and shoot Al Capone's driver. Another was to walk into an expertly planned machine-gun ambush while crossing the street to a flower shop.

Just as Lesy's first book, subverted the accepted notion of the Gay Nineties, so Murder City gives us the dark - darkly tragic and darkly true - side of the Jazz AGe. Lesy's sharp, fearless storytelling makes a compelling case that these criminals may be progenitors of our modern age."

Condition: Ex library book with all the markings. Reading copy. Spine is slanted. Dust jacket has mylar cover. 
Price: 9.00 USD