A close-up look at Chicago during the 1920s offers a fascinating portrait of a crime-ridden city that became the murder capital of the United States during the era of the Jazz Age and critically analyzes the repercussions of Chicago's criminal and violent past on the events of the present day. 
 
 
 

 "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 men--crimes 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.&nbsp;

Murder City: The Bloody History of Chicago in the Twenties PDF

The list of books you might like