Chicago 1928: third largest city in the world and corrupt to the core. Prohibition. Louis Armstrong. Al Capone. Mayor Big Bill Thompson. Dante the Gent. A judge who is also a mob undertaker. A missing heiress. Bugs Malone. A traitor in the Outfit. Bronzeville. The Black Belt. The Yards. State's Attorneys Office. Pinkerton's. Tunney v. Dempsey. Reefer, coke and horse.
This is a tale of Chicago in all of its Roaring 20's grit, color, life and whatever the opposite of glory is. Two searches are the background for this novel. The first involves Michael and Ida, a rather unique pair of Pinkerton Detectives. They hail from New Orleans, but have been working Chicago for some time. He's a former cop and she is colored, making them an unlikely pair. But they are effective. They are hired by a wealthy drug-addled Gold Coast matron concerned about her missing daughter. The second search is by Dante, called in from NY by Capone to try and sort out how and why a party for the local Republican* pols almost ended Capone's career when they all got sick on some rot-gut champagne. The intriguing and back-stabbing in the Outfit can get pretty complex. It is, of course, no surprise when the two searches converge.
This book is the second of what is intended to be a four book series. Jazz is an integral part of it, but of no interest to me, so I've skipped the previous one set in the Big Easy. Next up is NYC in the forties and I'll likely do that. The plotting has its weak points, but the scene-setting is very good.
*Thompson was the last Republican Mayor of the city. The corruption that is at the heart of the 'Chicago Way' has always been bi-partisan.
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