Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago - Softcover

Collins, Max Allan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0062441957 ISBN 13: 9780062441959

Publisher: William Morrow & Company, 2019

Synopsis

The new definitive history of gangster-era Chicago-a landmark work that is as riveting as a thriller. Now featuring a new preface and bonus material.

A CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

"An extraordinary achievement. The writing is riveting, the research impeccable." --Sara Paretsky

"Gripping. ... Reads like a novel." --Chicago

"Revolutionizes our understanding of Al Capone and Eliot Ness." --Matthew Pearl
"A very good book. ... Reads with force and style." --Chicago Tribune

"Essential. ... A superior example [of true crime]." --Seattle Times

Includes 115 photographs and a map of gangland Chicago.

In 1929, thirty-year-old gangster Al Capone ruled both Chicago's underworld and its corrupt government. To a public who scorned Prohibition, "Scarface" became a local hero and national celebrity. But after the brutal St. Valentine's Day Massacre transformed Capone into "Public Enemy Number One," the federal government found an unlikely new hero in a twenty-seven-year-old Prohibition agent named Eliot Ness. Chosen to head the legendary law enforcement team known as "The Untouchables," Ness set his sights on crippling Capone's criminal empire.

Today, no underworld figure is more iconic than Al Capone and no lawman as renowned as Eliot Ness. Yet in 2016 the Chicago Tribune wrote, "Al Capone still awaits the biographer who can fully untangle, and balance, the complexities of his life," while revisionist historians have continued to misrepresent Ness and his remarkable career.

Enter Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz, a unique and vibrant writing team combining the narrative skill of a master novelist with the scholarly rigor of a trained historian. Collins is the New York Times bestselling author of the gangster classic Road to Perdition. Schwartz is a rising-star historian whose work anticipated the fake-news phenomenon.

Scarface and the Untouchable draws upon decades of primary source research--including the personal papers of Ness and his associates, newly released federal files, and long-forgotten crime magazines containing interviews with the gangsters and G-men themselves. Collins and Schwartz have recaptured a bygone bullet-ridden era while uncovering the previously unrevealed truth behind Scarface's downfall. Together they have crafted the definitive work on Capone, Ness, and the battle for Chicago.

About this title

Review

"Scarface and the Untouchable is an extraordinary achievement. The writing is riveting, the research impeccable--including material never published before--and the history of a city and a country teetering on the brink of total lawlessness is a sober warning for our own age."--SARA PARETSKY, author of the bestselling V.I. Warshawski novels

"Scarface and the Untouchable revolutionizes our understanding of Al Capone and Eliot Ness. An indispensable exercise in Prohibition-era excitement."--MATTHEW PEARL, author of The Dante Club and The Dante Chamber

"A gripping take on Chicago's past that reads like a novel."--Chicago Magazine

"Compelling. ... A very good book. ... A narrative that reads with force and style."--Chicago Tribune

"Provide[s] a definitive account of Capone and Ness's linked destinies. ... Lively and masterfully written... with the scholarship to back it up."--CrimeReads

"Scarface and the Untouchable reads like fiction. But it's real. Collins and Schwartz bring to life an era of American which will never be replicated."--OSCAR B. GOODMAN, legendary "mob attorney" and three-term mayor of Las Vegas

"Succeed[s] admirably. ... Careful research combined with vivid pulp style."--Booklist

"The scholarship displayed in Scarface and the Untouchable is extraordinary, probing deeply into the activities, interrelationships and mindsets of the many principal characters."--BookPage

"An informed and valuable addition to the numerous books about Capone and Ness."--Publishers Weekly

"Epic. ... A good read."--New York Journal of Books

From the Back Cover

A CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

Featuring a new preface and bonus material

The definitive history of gangster-era Chicago--a landmark work that is as riveting as a thriller

In 1929, thirty-year-old gangster Al Capone ruled both Chicago's underworld and its corrupt government. To a public who scorned Prohibition, "Scarface" became a local hero and national celebrity. But after the brutal St. Valentine's Day Massacre transformed Capone into "Public Enemy Number One," the federal government found an unlikely new hero in a twenty-seven-year-old Prohibition agent named Eliot Ness. Chosen to head the legendary law enforcement team known as "The Untouchables," Ness set his sights on crippling Capone's criminal empire.

Today, no underworld figure is more iconic than Al Capone and no lawman as renowned as Eliot Ness. In Scarface and the Untouchable, Max Allan Collins, the New York Times bestselling author of the gangster classic Road to Perdition, and A. Brad Schwartz, a rising-star historian whose work anticipated the fake news phenomenon, draw upon decades of primary source research, including the personal papers of Ness and his associates, newly released federal files, and long-forgotten crime magazines containing interviews with the gangsters and G-men themselves.

Recapturing a bygone bullet-ridden era while uncovering the previously unrevealed truth behind Scarface's downfall, Collins and Schwartz have crafted the definitive work on Capone, Ness, and the battle for Chicago.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 0062441957
• ISBN 13: 9780062441959
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 752