OCTOBER 2018 - AudioFile
This audiobook is a fascinating examination of the terrible times when the Mob ruled Chicago, with Stefan Rudnicki doing a pretty solid job of substituting for Walter Winchell's staccato "Untouchables" delivery. Thoroughly researched and expertly executed, the story’s most surprising revelation is how little Eliot Ness and Al Capone had to do with each other. They met only once, and that was momentary. Yet the super-straight-shooting Ness made it his life's work to take down the illegal bootlegging operation that Capone headed but operated from a distance. The most revealing part of the audiobook is the incredible corruption that was rampant in Chicago at all levels of government during Prohibition. The chronological work follows the lives of the two men and is impossible to turn off. M.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
06/25/2018
Mystery writer Collins (The Bloody Spur) and historian Schwartz (Broadcast Hysteria) dutifully trace the lives of Al Capone (1899–1947) and his lawman nemesis, Eliot Ness (1903–1957), in Prohibition-era Chicago. Drawing on a trove of sources, including Ness’s scrapbooks, the authors look at the parallel arcs of these men in the 1920s and 1930s as Capone gained notoriety and status as Chicago’s greatest public enemy while Ness climbed the ranks of law enforcement to head a squad devoted to bringing Capone to justice. The general contours of this real-life drama are familiar, including the irony that Capone was eventually convicted of tax evasion, rather than the hundreds of murders he orchestrated; the authors add depth to their depiction of both men with colorful details such as the fact that, prior to becoming adversaries, Capone and Ness both lived on South Prairie Street for a period in 1923. Collins and Schwartz present a balanced view of the role of Ness in capturing Capone, which accounts such as Jonathan Eig’s Get Capone (2010) and Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s documentary Prohibition (2011) have largely dismissed. The result is an informed and valuable addition to the numerous books about Capone and Ness. (Aug.)
From the Publisher
Essential. … A superior example [of true crime]. … When the subject is this fascinating and the telling so expertly done, it’s hard to resist.” — Seattle Times
“Compelling. … A very good book. … A narrative that reads with force and style.” — Chicago Tribune
“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
“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
“A gripping take on Chicago’s past that reads like a novel.” — Chicago Magazine
“A page-turner, as gripping as any novel. ... A vividly detailed chronicle. ... What a great saga this is.” — LEONARD MALTIN
“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
“Vivid. … A deep and detailed dive into a staple of American popular mythology.” — Washington Independent Review of Books
“An informed and valuable addition to the numerous books about Capone and Ness.” — Publishers Weekly
“A book full of fascinating details… [and] made-for-movies scenes.” — The Star-Ledger
“Epic. ... A good read.” — New York Journal of Books
“Readers will enjoy this dual biography, which reads like a popular novel, and will learn that Capone could be a cold-blooded killer.” — Lansing City Pulse
“Entrancing. … Will keep you enthralled, reading for hours. ... [A] monumental volume, including the discovery of considerable previously unknown information.” — Lansing State Journal
“Scarface and the Untouchable is a page-turning history that overwhelms the past retellings of the pre-eminent battle against organized crime. An excellent book that is history, biography, and true crime.” — San Francisco Book Review
OSCAR B. GOODMAN
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.
BookPage
The scholarship displayed in Scarface and the Untouchable is extraordinary, probing deeply into the activities, interrelationships and mindsets of the many principal characters.
Chicago Magazine
A gripping take on Chicago’s past that reads like a novel.
CrimeReads
Provide[s] a definitive account of Capone and Ness’s linked destinies. … Lively and masterfully written… with the scholarship to back it up.
SARA PARETSKY
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.
Seattle Times
Essential. … A superior example [of true crime]. … When the subject is this fascinating and the telling so expertly done, it’s hard to resist.
LEONARD MALTIN
A page-turner, as gripping as any novel. ... A vividly detailed chronicle. ... What a great saga this is.
Booklist
Succeed[s] admirably. ... Careful research combined with vivid pulp style.
Chicago Tribune
Compelling. … A very good book. … A narrative that reads with force and style.
MATTHEW PEARL
Scarface and the Untouchable revolutionizes our understanding of Al Capone and Eliot Ness. An indispensable exercise in Prohibition-era excitement.
Booklist
Succeed[s] admirably. ... Careful research combined with vivid pulp style.
Chicago Tribune
Compelling. … A very good book. … A narrative that reads with force and style.
The Star-Ledger
A book full of fascinating details… [and] made-for-movies scenes.
Lansing State Journal
Entrancing. … Will keep you enthralled, reading for hours. ... [A] monumental volume, including the discovery of considerable previously unknown information.
Lansing City Pulse
Readers will enjoy this dual biography, which reads like a popular novel, and will learn that Capone could be a cold-blooded killer.
New York Journal of Books
Epic. ... A good read.
Washington Independent Review of Books
Vivid. … A deep and detailed dive into a staple of American popular mythology.
San Francisco Book Review
Scarface and the Untouchable is a page-turning history that overwhelms the past retellings of the pre-eminent battle against organized crime. An excellent book that is history, biography, and true crime.
LEONARD MATLIN
A page-turner, as gripping as any novel. ... A vividly detailed chronicle. ... What a great saga this is.
OCTOBER 2018 - AudioFile
This audiobook is a fascinating examination of the terrible times when the Mob ruled Chicago, with Stefan Rudnicki doing a pretty solid job of substituting for Walter Winchell's staccato "Untouchables" delivery. Thoroughly researched and expertly executed, the story’s most surprising revelation is how little Eliot Ness and Al Capone had to do with each other. They met only once, and that was momentary. Yet the super-straight-shooting Ness made it his life's work to take down the illegal bootlegging operation that Capone headed but operated from a distance. The most revealing part of the audiobook is the incredible corruption that was rampant in Chicago at all levels of government during Prohibition. The chronological work follows the lives of the two men and is impossible to turn off. M.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2018-06-12
A gritty dual biography reveals the underworld of crime and corruption in 1920s and '30s America.In 1923, Al Capone (1899-1947) and Eliot Ness (1903-1957) became neighbors on a residential street in Chicago. As award-winning mystery writer Collins (Executive Order, 2017, etc.) and historian Schwartz (Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles's War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News, 2015, etc.) reveal, their careers soon vastly diverged. While Ness was a college student, Capone was involved in one of the city's major industries: crime. Within a few years, they would become fierce antagonists, Capone a notorious mobster, Ness a law enforcement agent focused on ferreting out bootleggers, especially Capone. By 1932, Capone had intensified into Ness' "obsession, consuming much of his time and energy." His team of agents, known as the Untouchables, became as famous in crime-fighting as Capone was in perpetrating crime. Like an urban hero, Capone was the first mobster depicted on a Time magazine cover. "He is, in his own phrase, ‘a business man' who wears clean linen, rides in a Lincoln car, leaves acts of violence to his underlings," the magazine reported. Chicago tour buses pointed out his "old haunts." Law enforcement dubbed him "Public Enemy Number One," an epithet that became his "enduring nickname," rather than "Scarface," which he hated. Scrappy and debonair, he had risen to the status of myth, "a symbol of government ineptitude and incompetence" and "the breakdown of the rule of law." When he was finally tried for tax evasion, the courtroom attracted more than 30 journalists, including Damon Runyon. Jurors' deliberations, the authors assert, "boiled down to a question Chicagoans—and so many Americans—had wrestled with through Capone's rise to infamous fortune: Was this man, this bootlegger, pimp, and killer, really all that bad?" The authors recount how Capone (the model for gangsters played by Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney) and Ness (model for Dick Tracy) took firm hold in popular culture.A fast-paced tale related with novelistic drama.
