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Simon & Schuster
May 2010
On Sale: April 27, 2010
Featuring: Al Capone
480 pages ISBN: 141658059X EAN: 9781416580591 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Biography
Drawing on thousands of pages of recently discovered
government documents, wiretap transcripts, and Al Capone’s
handwritten personal letters, New York Times bestselling
author Jonathan Eig tells the dramatic story of the rise and
fall of the nation’s most notorious criminal in rich new
detail. From the moment he arrived in Chicago in 1920,
Capone found himself in a world of limitless opportunity. He
was an impetuous, affable young man of average intelligence,
ill prepared for fame and fortune, whose most notable
characteristic was his scarred left cheek. Yet within a few
years, Capone controlled an illegal bootlegging business
with annual revenue rivaling that of some of the nation’s
largest corporations. Along the way he corrupted the Chicago
police force and local courts while becoming one of the
world’s first international celebrities. A furious
President Herbert Hoover insisted that Capone be brought to
justice because the criminal was making a mockery of federal
law. Legend credits Eliot Ness and his “Untouchables” with
apprehending Capone. But it was the U.S. attorney in Chicago
and little-known agents working on direct orders from the
White House who compromised their ethics—and risked their
lives—to get their man. The most infamous crime
attributed to Capone was the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, a
crime that Capone insisted he didn’t commit. Using newly
discovered FBI records, Eig offers a surprising explanation
for the murders. Get Capone explores every aspect of the
man called “Scarface,” paying particular attention to the
myths that have for so long surrounded and obscured him.
Capone emerges as a worldly, emotionally complex man, doomed
as much by his ego as by his vicious criminality. This is
the real Al Capone.
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