This candid autobiography touches the worlds of labor, politics, entertainment, and the underworld, and traces Block's life from his childhood in Brooklyn to his rise as leader of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters Union
"The thrilling history of the torso murderer. The tale of the ‘Untouchable’ who got Al Capone but failed to solve his goriest case." —Dan Jones, The Sunday Times In the spirit of Devil in the White City comes a true detective tale of the highest standard: the haunting story of Eliot Ness's forgotten final case–his years-long hunt for "The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run," a serial killer who terrorized Cleveland through the Great Depression. “After helping to put Al Capone behind bars, lawman Eliot Ness came to Cleveland, where he did battle with a vicious killer. ... Even Ness was stumped trying to apprehend the ‘torso murderer’ responsible for a series of ghoulish killings. ... The authors have done Ness justice." —Wall Street Journal In 1934, the nation’s most legendary crime-fighter–fresh from taking on the greatest gangster in American history–arrived in Cleveland, a corrupt and dangerous town about to host a world's fair. It was to be his coronation, as well as the city's. Instead, terror descended, as headless bodies started turning up. The young detective, already battling the mob and crooked cops, found his drive to transform American policing subverted by a menace largely unknown to law enforcement: a serial murderer. Eliot Ness's greatest case had begun. Now, Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz–the acclaimed writing team behind Scarface and the Untouchable–uncover this lost crime epic, delivering a gripping and unforgettable nonfiction account based on decades of groundbreaking research. Ness had risen to fame in 1931 for leading the “Untouchables,” which helped put Chicago’s Al Capone behind bars. As Cleveland's public safety director, in charge of the police and fire departments, Ness offered a radical new vision for better law enforcement. Crime-ridden and devastated by the Depression, Cleveland was preparing for a star-turn itself: in 1936, it would host the "Great Lakes Exposition," which would be visited by seven million people. Late in the summer of 1934, however, pieces of a woman’s body began washing up on the Lake Erie shore–first her ribs, then part of her backbone, then the lower half of her torso. The body count soon grew to five, then ten, then more, all dismembered in gruesome ways. As Ness zeroed in on a suspect–a doctor tied to a prominent political family–powerful forces thwarted his quest for justice. In this battle between a flawed hero and a twisted monster–by turns horror story, political drama, and detective thriller–Collins and Schwartz find an American tragedy, classic in structure, epic in scope.
THE UNTOUCHABLES HADN'T PREPARED NESS FOR THIS After slamming the door on Capone, Eliot Ness and the Untouchable: became legend. Now that's in the past, and Ness travels solo through Depression-ravaged America to clean up a battered town called Cleveland...a city in the firm grasp of fear. A rampaging madman has been on the loose for two years, a butcher who has already hacked up a dozen victims without leaving so much as a shred of evidence, with the exception of various, well-placed body parts. This case could cost Ness everything-his job, his reputation, his life-but he can't rest until this brutal murderer is caught. With one rookie cop, a headline crazed reporter and a gorgeous woman who just doesn't know when to quit, Ness goes undercover to hunt for an elusive killer who is almost as gifted with a knife as Ness is with a mystery. MAX ALLAN COLLINS, a Shamus-winning master of mystery and suspense, has skillfully woven fact and fiction to create a unique mystery series based on the life and exploits of one of America's most memorable heroes, Eliot Ness. Butcher's Dozen is the second book in this exciting series that began with the highly acclaimed The Dark CitY
The book is a funny and nostalgic biography of place of 1948-50 Brooklyn in sharp detail through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy whose adventures and schemes invariably lead to intrigue and trouble.
From the acclaimed author of Creep and Freak whom #1 bestselling author Jeffery Deaver praised as a “top-of-the-line thriller writer,” a high-octane novel about lethal secrets that refuse to die—until they kill again. A rash of grisly serial murders plagued Seattle until the infamous “Beacon Hill Butcher” was finally hunted down and killed by police chief Edward Shank in 1985. Now, some thirty years later, Shank, retired and widowed, is giving up his large rambling Victorian house to his grandson Matt, whom he helped raise. Settling back into his childhood home and doing some renovations in the backyard to make the house feel like his own, Matt, a young up-and-coming chef and restaurateur, stumbles upon a locked crate he’s never seen before. Curious, he picks the padlock and makes a discovery so gruesome it will forever haunt him… Faced with this deep, dark family secret, Matt must decide whether to keep what he knows buried in the past, go to the police, or take matters into his own hands. Meanwhile Matt’s girlfriend, Sam, has always suspected that her mother was murdered by the Beacon Hill Butcher—two years after the supposed Butcher was gunned down. As she pursues leads that will prove her right, Sam heads right into the path of Matt’s terrible secret. “A tense, suspenseful, thoroughly creepy thriller” (Booklist), The Butcher will keep you guessing until the bitter, bloody end. Don’t miss this “thrill ride that will have your attention from start to finish” (Suspense Magazine).
After achieving a fragile alliance with the savage Canim, Alera's oldest foes, Tavi of Calderon is confronted by an invasion by the Vord, which forces the Aleran legions and Canim warriors into a desperate battle for survival against a dreaded mutual enem
In his acclaimed Codex Alera novels, #1 New York Times bestselling author Jim Butcher has created a fascinating world in which the powerful forces of nature take physical form. But even magic cannot sway the corruption that threatens to destroy the realm of Alera once and for all... When the power-hungry High Lord of Kalare launches a merciless rebellion against the First Lord, young Tavi of Calderon joins a newly formed legion under an assumed name. And when the ruthless Kalare allies himself with a savage enemy of the realm, Tavi finds himself leading an inexperienced, poorly equipped legion—the only force standing between Alera and certain doom...
Follows a Seattle serial murder investigation centering on Abby Locke, who has been imprisoned for the attempted killing of a police officer and who has captured the attention of a violent fan obsessed with proving her innocence.
In the fantastic tradition of Borges, Bruno Schulz, Angela Carter, and H. P. Lovecraft, here are nearly sixty unforgettable stories that ignore the confines of space and time to offer, among other times and places: a cabinet of curiosities in contemporary Cairo, an alvhemical ceiling in 18th-century Naples, the hallucinatory inner worlds of psychotics, anthropomorphic planets, and an Old West ruled by necromancy.This expanded, revised edition collects the complete short stories of one of the most immaginative writers of our time.