Season 4 of Boardwalk Empire was both its most satisfying and gloomiest season to date. A host of new characters and plotlines were introduced, allowing the show to avoid the pattern of having each new season revolve around a different foe for Nucky to tangle with and defeat. Still, going into last year’s finale, it…
During the Prohibition years from 1920 to 1933, alcoholic beverages were illegal in the United States. But it was still fairly easy to get a drink. One of the easiest ways was to find a speakeasy—a hidden bar that served bootleg liquor and that often required a password to get in. Legend has it that…
Lucky Luciano. John Dillinger. Al Capone. Gangsters from 1920s and 1930s are part of our American heritage. We know their names and the violence they inflicted. In many ways they exemplify the American dream, because they beat the economic system and acquired immense wealth and power. And no gangster did it with more flare than…
Sugar Pop Moon by John Florio is a debut crime novel set during Prohibition (available July 9, 2013). Jersey Leo is the quintessential outsider—an albino of mixed race. Known as “Snowball” on the street, he makes a living as the bartender at a mob-run speakeasy in Prohibition-era Hell's Kitchen. Being neither black nor white, he…
Criminal enterprises are dangerous, no, really, I heard that somewhere. The risks of the job, though, are part of the deal. Hardly a criminal would balk at the prospect of being arrested or facing a prison sentence. It’s a risk; always has been, always will be. The job itself isn’t the only risk, though. Criminals…
Can you identify this woman of modest raiment, resolutely bearing her Bible and hatchet? No, not Lizzie Borden, who tends to look positively serene in photos. This is Carry A. Nation (even if many misspell her as “Carrie” and the A. really stands for Amelia), crusader for national temperance, posed as if to enter a saloon…
