Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster
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When he arrived in Chicago in 1920, Al Capone found limitless opportunity. An impetuous, affable young man of average intelligence, within a few years he'd built a booming illegal bootlegging business, corrupted the police and courts, and become an international celebrity. Drawing on thousands of pages of recently discovered government documents, wiretap transcripts, and Al Capone's handwritten personal letters, Jonathan Eig tells the dramatic story of the rise and fall of the nation's most notorious criminal in rich new detail. The Barnes & Noble Review In Jonathan’s Eig’s brilliantly researched and accessible "life and times" of the most notorious mobster of a notorious era, we learn that Al Capone’s biggest problem wasn’t the Chicago cops or vicious rival crime bosses. These could be bribed away or killed off, both “Scarface” specialties. What ultimately undid the legendary 1920s gangster was his craving to be as famous as Babe Ruth. Capone effectively crafted “a public identity as an overlord of the underworld,” writes Eig. As brazen bootlegging and rampant violence poisoned big cities like Capone’s Chicago, Scarface would describe himself in countless newspaper interviews as a self-made businessman simply offering what customers demanded. Capone was untouchable in Chicago, running his lucrative criminal syndicate with modern business techniques and resorting to violence when necessary. He paid police and judges for protection, and left rival gangs alone if they didn’t bother him. Yet as the gangland wars inevitably exploded, highlighted by the 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (when seven of Capone’s rivals were machine-gunned), the federal government intervened. Capone’s appetite for publicity put a bulls-eye on his back, explains Eig, making him the nation’s “leading symbol of lawlessness.” And as such, he attracted the attention and ire of President Herbert Hoover, who “gave the order to the top officials in every relevant agency: Get Capone.” Hoover not only supported Prohibition and obsessed about maintaining order, but seemed personally offended by Capone’s public image as a self-made businessman. The President, Eig writes, would begin each morning by asking his cabinet, “Have you got Capone yet?” Capone was eventually put away not for racketeering and murder but for tax evasion and his 1931 conviction would result in the maximum sentence of eleven years, much of it served in Alcatraz. Capone was finished. As Eig observes, his “popular appeal" was crucial to his rise toward the fame he craved -- but it "infuriated" those who might have otherwise ignored a single city's crime boss, and ensured his almost classic fall. --Chuck Leddy
Part 1 Capone Rising 131 The Getting of It 152 Good-bye, Diamond Jim 283 A Little House on South Prairie 434 "I'm Sure It Was Capone" 545 Funny Notions 696 A Man of Destiny 797 Heat Wave 908 "He Will Knock You Flat Just for Fun" 999 The Peacemaker 11110 Q Is for Quincy 12711 Sorry About That, Hymie 13912 A Smile and a Gun 15413 The Grinder 16214 The Better Element 174Part 2 King Capone 18515 "There's Worse Fellows in the World than Me" 18716 Uneasy Lies the Head 21217 Deepest in Dirt 23318 Pineapples and Coconuts 24119 The Graduation of Frankie Yale 26520 Hooverization 28421 "I Do Not Stay Up Late" 29622 The Enforcer 30123 The Formidable Alphonse 31924 Little Caesar 33125 St. Valentine's Day 345Part 3 Capone Falling 35926 "An Unsolved Crime" 36127 "The Most Sore Necessity of Our Times" 37128 The Brightest Days 38629 "Have You Got Capone Yet?" 40030 Locked Up 41331 Elegant Mess 42832 The Napoleon of Chicago 45133 The Big Fellow Chills 46434 Silent Partner 47335 "Lady, Nobody's on the Legit" 48336 Public Enemy Number One 50537 "There Is No Friendship Among Hoodlums" 53338 Contempt 54939 Death and Taxes 56240 United States Against Al Capone 57841 The So-Called Untouchables 60642 "Who Wouldn't Be Worried?" 61843 Big Spender 63644 The Verdict 648Epilogue 663Acknowledgments 715Sources 721Notes 725
