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![]() ![]() ![]() Other Al Capone related Books
![]() Written by Al Capone's granddaughter!
Yes! That's correct! Albert Francis "Sonny" Capone's daughter!
(Click on book for purchase info)
Diane Patricia Capone
Listen to Diane's interview on WGN radio.
ATTENTION!!!
![]() Second Diane Capone book just released!
![]() Click on below book covers to order.
![]() ![]() You heard here first!! Finally!!! Something to look forward to and I can't wait to read this!!
My big sister Diane Capone has come through with the news we were all waiting for! It's available on Kindle for now but physical copies will be available around the 14th of July!!
Thank-you Diane!!! xo
For years, many wondered what happened to his family after his death. In this second book called The Capone Girls, the lives of his beloved wife, his son and daughter-in-law and his granddaughters are finally disclosed.
After spending her entire adult life in the San Francisco bay area and a career working as a college counselor in Santa Clara, Diane Patricia Capone now lives quietly with her husband in the Sierra Foothills of Northern California. Her greatest joy is being surround by her family and friends and ten grandchildren.
COMING DECEMBER 14TH!!
![]() Fred "Killer" Burke: The Hunt for the Most Dangerous Man Alive is an updated special edition of my original novel, A Killing in Capone's Playground: The True Story of the Hunt for the Most Dangerous Man Alive, which won a National Indie Excellence Award for True Crime in 2016. Having received substantial new details and photographs since its first release in 2014, I felt that a new version of this heartfelt true story needed to be told.
~~~~ From the author Chriss Lyon ~~~
“Bloody Chicago” was the name given to America’s most corrupt city after the grotesque scene that left seven humans embedded into masonry walls and oil-slickened concrete. Two Thompson submachine guns did the majority of the damage but the masterminds behind the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre escaped. Ten months later on December 14, 1929, St. Joseph, Michigan Police Officer Charles Skelly working a routine traffic crash came face to face with a killer. Shots were fired, the assailant escaped and the dying Officer Skelly identified his murderer before taking his last breath. The trail led to a home in Stevensville, Michigan where authorities found an arsenal of weaponry, over $300,000 worth of stolen bonds, bulletproof vests, and two Thompson submachine guns. The hideout belonged to Fred Burke, a highly sought suspect in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and now the most wanted man in the nation.
The “backwash of bloody Chicago” had made its way into the rural neighborhoods of Southwestern Michigan and Northern Indiana. Citizens who turned a blind eye to crime, helped create “Capone’s Playground,” an environment abundant in all that is illegal and immoral.
Using never before published police reports, interviews with family members of key witnesses, and leading experts, historian Chriss Lyon establishes the foundation for what would develop as a haven for gangsters from the onset of the Prohibition Era through to the mid-twentieth century, while revealing new information about the eventual capture of notorious gangster Fred “Killer” Burke.
Contact the author at spinaltap@att.net
Al Capone's Beer Wars:
A Complete History of Organized Crime in Chicago during Prohibition
(June 2017)
![]() Although much has been written about Al Capone, there has not been--until now--a complete history of organized crime in Chicago during Prohibition. This exhaustively researched book covers the entire period from 1920 to 1933. Author John J. Binder, a recognized authority on the history of organized crime in Chicago, discusses all the important bootlegging gangs in the city and the suburbs and also examines the other major rackets, such as prostitution, gambling, labor and business racketeering, and narcotics.
A major focus is how the Capone gang -- one of twelve major bootlegging mobs in Chicago at the start of Prohibition--gained a virtual monopoly over organized crime in northern Illinois and beyond. Binder also describes the fight by federal and local authorities, as well as citizens' groups, against organized crime. In the process, he refutes numerous myths and misconceptions related to the Capone gang, other criminal groups, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, and gangland killings.
What emerges is a big picture of how Chicago's underworld evolved during this period. This broad perspective goes well beyond Capone and specific acts of violence and brings to light what was happening elsewhere in Chicagoland and after Capone went to jail.
Based on 25 years of research and using many previously unexplored sources, this fascinating account of a bloody and colorful era in Chicago history will become the definitive work on the subject.
Author William J. Helmer's
![]() ![]() When her husband was murdered on the orders of Chicago mobster Frank Nitti, Georgette Winkler—wife of one of Al Capone's "American Boys"—set out to expose the Chicago Syndicate. After an attempt to publish her story was squelched by the mob, she offered it to the FBI in the mistaken belief that they had the authority to strike at the racketeers who had killed her husband Gus. Discovered 60 years later in FBI files, the manuscript describes the couple’s life on the run, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre (Gus was one of the shooters), and other headline crimes of that period. Prepared for publication by mob expert William J. Helmer, Al Capone and His American Boys is a compelling contemporary account of the heyday of Chicago crime by a woman who found herself married to the mob.
![]() Available via Amazon
![]() By William J. Helmer
![]() ![]() During Prohibition, Chicago’s Beer Wars turned the city into a battleground, secured its reputation as gangster capital of the world, and laid the foundation for nationally organized crime. Bootlegger bloodshed was greater there than anywhere else.
The machine-gun murders of seven men on the morning of February 14, 1929, by killers dressed as cops became the gangland "crime of the century.
![]() Organized Crime in Miami
![]() by Avi Bash
![]() Organized Crime in Miami examines the considerable yet heavily underpublicized involvement of the American Mafia in South Florida and its lasting impact on the community through their business activities, both illegal and within the confines of the law. While other cities are credited for birthing and honing the legendary crime figures who inevitably influenced and shaped their susceptible surroundings and culture, Miami is where the Mob, like many American citizens, often turned when seeking vacation, vice, or a new beginning. Dating back to the first quarter of the 20th century, resourceful gangsters from across the nation recognized the profitable business opportunities Miami could provide with its booming population, perfect year-round climate, cooperative law enforcement, and mutual understanding among otherwise rival gangs. The promise of an open city, free from familiar encumbrances and restrictions, prompted eager mobsters from around the country to migrate south and trade in their suits and fedoras for swim trunks and flip-flops.
Organized Crime in Miami features a collection of previously unpublished and rarely circulated photographs originating directly from newspaper archives, police files, and private family albums of the individuals depicted between it’s two covers. Order it here!
Author and organized crime historian Matthew Luzi has been pursuing true crime history in Chicago Heights for more than 25 years. He has contributed to A&E’s biography of Al Capone, the History Channel’s “Rogue’s Gallery” program
and has been acknowledged in published works by John Binder, Art Bilek, and Mars Eghigian.
Highly recommended! order here at Amazon!
![]() The Bugs Moran Story;The Man Who Got Away.
![]() ![]() ![]() George "Bugs" Moran was the last of Chicago's spectacular North Side gang leaders, a colorful and violent dynasty that began with the rise of Dean O'Banion in 1920. THE MAN WHO GOT AWAY provides the first in-depth look at the enigmatic gangster's charmed yet wacky life, from his Minnesota childhood to his rise and fall in Chicago's prohibition-era underworld, his life as an independent outlaw in the 1930s and 1940s, and his last days in an Ohio penitentiary. In telling Moran's story, some of the twentieth century's most fascinating gangland figures are revisited, among them Al Capone, Johnny Torrio, Dean O'Banion, Vincent Drucci, Earl "Hymie" Weiss, showboating Chicago Mayor "Big Bill" Thompson, the gang-hating yet oddly pro-Moran Judge John H. Lyle, and two of Ohio's most colorful and brazen robbers, Virgil Summers and Albert Fouts. While Moran was not killed in the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in February 1929—a bloodbath that was meant for him but instead claimed the lives of seven of his associates—it marked the beginning of Moran's end as a gangland power. Cops and journalists dismissed Moran, figuring the losing his top men in the Clark Street garage and Capone's steady absorption of the North Side would either force Bugs out of town for good or make him a vulnerable target for a hit man. Moran suffered neither fate. His career showed him to be a cunning and determined survivor. Moran was street-smart in the style of the pre-World War I gangsters, rough-and-tumble brawlers who relied on their instincts, guts, and guns. He outlived O'Banion, Weiss, Capone, and probably most of those who predicted his imminent demise in 1929. Moran did not escape scot-free, however, serving the latter part of his life in both Ohio State and Leavenworth prisons on bank robbery charges. Despite his violent career, it was cigarettes, not bullets, that did him in; he died in prison in 1957 from lung cancer.
![]() Dean O'Banion
![]() ![]() ![]() Before Al Capone, Chicago’s reigning gang leader was the flamboyant and lethal Dean “Deanie” O’Banion. His role in the Chicago gang wars of the 1920s has been examined briefly in Capone biographies and Prohibition histories, but never before has there been a book-length biography of the Irish-American gangster who was known as “Chicago’s Arch Killer” and “The Boss of the 42nd and 43rd Wards.” Using information compiled from police and court documents, contemporary news accounts, and interviews with O’Banion’s friends and associates, Guns and Roses covers O’Banion’s rise from an Illinois farm boy to the most powerful gang boss in early 1920s Chicago. It examines his role in the Irish-Sicilian clashes that plagued the North Side circa 1890–1910, his years as a slugger for William Randolph Hearst during the city’s newspaper circulation war, and his turbulent relationship with Al Capone as the two gang bosses struggled for supremacy. Also exposed in colorful detail is his association with Chicago’s other underworld luminaries, many of whose names have been lost to history despite their fascinating stories: the “Kiss of Death” girl Margaret Collins, the “Safecracking King” Charles Reiser, Jewish mobster Nails Morton, and O’Banion’s own men: Hymie Weiss, Louis “Two Gun” Alterie, Vincent Drucci, and Bugs Moran, the latter of whom barely escaped the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. The book ends with O’Banion’s notorious “handshake murder,” and the struggle of his successors with Al Capone. In many ways O’Banion was an enigmatic character. A powerful gang boss who cracked skulls as brutally as any of his henchmen on election day, yet he supported entire North Side slums with his charity. And while he had few gangster allies, he inspired fanatical loyalty among his own men. The product of fifteen years of research and writing, Guns and Roses is a stroll through the memories of old Chicago as much as it is a study of its most “storied” gangster.
Excellent book on Frank McErlane
By author Daniel Waugh
Beithíoch = Animal or Beast
Two Volumes!
"Old time criminal and bootlegger. Acquitted of two murders and accused of many others. Reputed to be the most violent criminal in Chicago." With those brief words, the Chicago Crime Commission managed to accurately sum up South Side gang boss Frank McErlane. Familiar to most crime buffs as an exceptionally violent supporting character in Al Capone biographies, McErlane was the most feared gangster in Chicago. Beithíoch is the first full-length biography of the man who introduced the Thompson submachine gun to the city that made it world-famous and popularized the so-called "one-way ride."
Driven by personal demons and often fueled by alcohol, McErlane cut a ferocious swath through the South Side underworld that absolutely no one was safe from. In addition to telling Frank McErlane's story for the first time, Beithíoch provides a fresh look at the ostensibly familiar terrain of Prohibition-era Chicago. The careers of gang bosses such as Joe Soltis, Spike O'Donnell, and Danny Stanton are examined in great detail. In a story that spans the Midwest and stretches to the shores of California, Beithíoch is the groundbreaking tale of an incredibly brutal gangster who wrote his name in blood across the annals of American criminal history.
To purchase click on each book photo above!
"Machine Gun" Jack McGurn
Chicago Assassin: The Life and Legend of Machine Gun Jack McGurn and the Chicago Beer Wars of the Roaring Twenties
![]() Author Richard J. Shmelter
The city of Chicago led the nation in gangland violence created by the "Noble Experiment" known as Prohibition, and throughout the Roaring Twenties and beyond, it produced many infamous criminals whose names will forever be a part of America's criminal history. "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn was one of the most colorful and lethal characters whose exploits made the Windy City synonymous with organized crime throughout the turbulent era. Chicago Assassin documents the rise and fall of one of the period's most compelling underworld denizens. He was born Vincenzo Gibaldi in Licata, Sicily, at the beginning of the twentieth century and, with his parents, became part of the mass exodus by Europeans seeking a better life in the perceived utopia across the Atlantic known as America. The Gibaldis settled in Brooklyn, where Vincenzo spent much of his early life until a senseless act of violence tore his world apart. In a case of mistaken identity, his beloved father was murdered, and from that day forward, deep in his soul, there burned the quest for revenge. Some years later, Vincenzo's mother remarried a grocer, Angelo DeMora, and the new family moved to Chicago to make a fresh start. Vincenzo succeeded in his new surroundings, thanks to his friendly personality and outstanding athletic prowess. The handsome, congenial youth quickly mastered every sport he attempted, and by his late teens he had become one of the top welterweights in Chicago. Deciding to turn professional, Vincenzo Gibaldi adopted the name Jack McGurn, an Irish-sounding name more suited to a sport dominated at the time by that ethnic group. While "Battling" Jack McGurn was attempting to make a name for himself in the ring, his stepfather, Angelo, was working hard in the grocery store he owned in the Little Italy section of the city. The notorious Genna brothers controlled the manufacture of bootleg alcohol in Little Italy, and they bought the sugar needed to make their illicit product from McGurn's stepfather. But when they discovered the grocer was also selling sugar to other bootleggers, the Genna brothers targeted him for assassination and brutally cut him down in front of his store. Once again, the young Italian had to cope with the horrific loss of a father. This time, however, his quest for vengeance erupted with extreme violence. He went to Brooklyn, where he fatally shot two of his biological father's killers and seriously wounded another, then returned to Chicago, where he eliminated those responsible for the murder of his stepfather. It was at this time that Jack McGurn caught the eye of America's premier gangster, Al Capone. After a sterling apprenticeship with a Capone-controlled satellite called the Circus Gang, McGurn realized that fate had determined his life's work. He eventually earned a reputation as Chicago's most feared and notorious gangland assassin, with more than twenty kills to his credit during the city's bloody Beer Wars. It is interesting to note that the weapon of choice for the man known as "Machine Gun" Jack was actually a revolver—his nickname, like those of most criminals of the day, was concocted by a newspaper reporter looking for a catchy moniker that would make good copy. Jack McGurn also has been forever linked to the most notorious slaying in gangland history—the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Within these pages is new evidence that brings to light in detail Jack McGurn's involvement in the slaughter and its aftermath. And no story set in the turbulent decades of the 1920s and '30s would be complete without the gorgeous women who sought their thrills from these dangerous yet intriguing men. Like most of his contemporaries, Jack McGurn could have his pick among countless beautiful young females, but one became not only his lover but his soulmate, as well. Louise Rolfe was the quintessential jazz baby, and she played a major role in McGurn's life, earning a bit of immortality herself along the way. Of all the gangsters who became household names during the Roaring Twenties and Prohibition—and whose legends continue today—"Machine Gun" Jack McGurn is arguably the most compelling, for his classic good looks, love of family, athletic ability, and calculating criminal mind made him the template for the good-boy-gone-bad films that have been a staple of American culture since the 1930s.
![]() Almost before the gunsmoke from the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre cleared, Chicago police had a suspect: Jack McGurn. They just couldn’t find him. McGurn, whose real name was Vincent Gebardi, was Al Capone’s chief assassin, a baby-faced Sicilian immigrant and professional killer of professional killers. But two weeks after the murders, police found McGurn and his paramour, Louise May Rolfe, holed up downtown at the Stevens Hotel. Both claimed they were in bed on the morning of the famous shootings, a titillating alibi that grabbed the public’s attention and never let go.
Deadly Valentines tells one of the most outrageous stories of the 1920s, a twin biography of a couple who defined the extremes and excesses of the Prohibition era in America. McGurn was a prizefighter and the ultimate urban predator and hit man who put the iron in Al Capone’s muscle. Rolfe, a beautiful blonde dancer and libertine, was the epitome of fashion, rebellion, and wild abandon in the new jazz subculture. They were the prototypes for decades of gangster literature and cinema, representing a time that has never lost its allure.
About the Author
Jeffrey Gusfield, a native Chicagoan, has researched the history of Jack McGurn, Louise Rolfe, and the Capone years for more than four decades.
Frank Nitti
![]() ![]() Authored by Mars Eghigian Jr.
![]() Approximately 437 pages which includes about 150 pages of detailed notes for the serious organized crime researchers; proposed 16 pages of (71or more) photos, including some unpublished photos including Nitti, Bioff, Browne, Ricca mugshots, Estelle Carey, Aiello, Stanton, and a couple fresh scenery shots; an account of Nitti's life from his upbringing in Italy to New York to Chicago, his entry into organized crime, a somewhat different view of the 1920's (not another complete rehash) and his complete career after Capone. Based as much as possible on original sources; the movie extortion portion, in particular, is derived from actual trial transcripts and Fed files. Available at Amazon or at all fine bookstores online!
Frank Nitto questions? You can contact the author at Mars2ntto@gmail.com
![]() ![]() The Gun That Made The Twenties Roar copyright 1969 by The Gun room press
This book is a must for all gangster and gun enthusiasts. It shows the beginnings of the Thompson from it's inception to it's bloody past from gangster warefare and to later glory in the korean war.
![]() By William Helmer with Rick Mattix
In the stormy decades between 1920 and 1940, America's cities as well as its rural areas were introduced to a new breed of lawlessness the Gangster. Public Enemies: America's Criminal Past details hard-to-find statistics, narratives, and lore, as well as the vivid personalities that roamed the country during this period.
Filled with more than 70 illustrations and editorial cartoons that capture the attitudes of the era, Public Enemies reveals the nature of U.S. crime and criminals during this time, with particular attention to Prohibition bootleggers, Depression Era outlaws, and the first nationwide "war on crime." Great Book!!!!
Book on Calvin Goddard's ballistics work and papers.
![]() Calvin Goddard book compiled by Neal Trickel.
About Mr. Neal Trickel
Besides being a Wisconsin hospital technician, Neal is big into loading tracer
ammunition of different colors, does not foul barrels, and do not do the other disgusting
things common to military tracer of which the Army has many millions. He also makes
"spotter" rounds that do a loud pop on contact with a target. (And probably on people,
although I think he sticks to targets. And he's now in the process of getting hooked up
with a large-scale supplier. Naturally his chemical compounds are patented
But otherwise his attic is stacked to the brim with boxes, crates, trunks and such, and
he goes through the Wilimovsky stuff only when it surfaces. Like this trunkload of St.
Valentine's Day slugs, casings, the test-rounds from other Cook County Tommyguns (when
the cops were still under suspicion, autopsy reports, and wound diagrams. He's currently
sorting through the Massacre ammo and the paperwork that goes with it, along with
Goddard's letters and other paperwork.
First Posted March 2005
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