Gift CERTIFICATES?
PetPix PORTAL
Time Capsule STARSPawsitive FEEDBACK!
|
The Amazon Store at MillionDollarPetPix.com ( In association with Amazon.com )Satan's Circus: Murder, Vice, Police Corruption, and New York's Trial of the Centuryby: Mike Dash  List Price: $15.95 Amazon.com's Price: $10.85 You Save: $5.10 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping.
Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 973 EAN: 9781400054725 Edition: Reprint ISBN: 1400054729 Label: Three Rivers Press Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 464 Publication Date: August 26, 2008 Publisher: Three Rivers Press Release Date: August 26, 2008 Studio: Three Rivers Press Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Product Description: They called it Satan’s Circus—a square mile of Midtown Manhattan where vice ruled, sin flourished, and depravity danced in every doorway. At the turn of the twentieth century, it was a place where everyone from the chorus girls to the beat cops was on the take and where bad boys became wicked men; a place where an upstanding young policeman such as Charley Becker could become the crookedest cop who ever stood behind a shield. Murder was so common in the vice district that few people were surprised when the loudmouthed owner of a shabby casino was gunned down on the steps of its best hotel. But when, two weeks later, an ambitious district attorney charged Becker with ordering the murder, even the denizens of Satan’s Circus were surprised. The handsome lieutenant was a decorated hero, the renowned leader of New York’s vice-busting Special Squad. Was he a bad cop leading a double life, or a pawn felled by the sinister rogues who ran Manhattan’s underworld? With appearances by the legendary and the notorious—including Big Tim Sullivan, the election-rigging vice lord of Tammany Hall; future president Theodore Roosevelt; beloved gangster Jack Zelig; and the newly famous author Stephen Crane—Satan’s Circus brings to life an almost-forgotten Gotham. Chronicling Charley Becker’s rise and fall, the book tells of the raucous, gaudy, and utterly corrupt city that made him, and recounts not one but two sensational murder trials that landed him in the electric chair. From the Hardcover edition. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - An interesting and thorough accountI listened to this book on CD and found the story fascinating. I'd never heard of Charley Becker or Satan's Circus but the story is certainly worth hearing if only to disclose potential pitfalls in the justice system and ensure that history doesn't repeat itself. Dash provides lots of context for the story and the amount of detail indicates the level of thought and research that went into this book. Rating:  - An okay book...I started reading this book and shortly after starting it I put it down. I went back to it a few months later and finished it. Well researched and written, although I had nothing but contempt for the police officer about whom the book is written. At times, the characters become confusing, but it is a decent read, nothwithstanding the distasteful nature of the police officer profiled in the book. Rating: - Too Much Detail and Not Enough EditingThis is my third book by Mike Dash and while the other two seemed to move in a flowing manner, this one was more halting and jerky. Many times in reading along, Dash jumps to another part of the story and leaves you wondering what happened. At other times he reiterates something already mentioned as if it was new. What I found most disconcerting was Dash's inability to keep a straight timeline. In one paragraph he will mention two situations, with the time frame reversed (i.e. something ... Read More Rating: - Tammany Hall Rocked by Murder Scandal in ManhattanThis is a superior account of the murder of a failed gambling boss, Herman Rosenthal, and the subsequent trials that resulted in the execution of four of his killers, "Gyp the Blood" Horowitz, "Lefty Louie" Rosenberg, "Dago Frank" Cirofici and Whitey Lewis (a/k/a Jacob Seidenschner) and a crooked Police Lieutenant, Charles Becker. The latter was charged as a participant in a criminal conspiracy to murder Rosenthal in order to silence him before he could expose widespread police corruption in midtown Manhattan ... Read More Rating: - Social History with All the DetailsIn fairness, I bought this book for my wife, rather than for myself. This is not a book I would normally pick to read, and about halfway through, when I gave up, that "normal" self-judgment was vindicated. Dash provides the promised detailed account of life in the red-light district in turn-of-the-century New York City, and his account is tightly detailed. Within the decades of the 1890's and the 1900's, shifts in local power changed the political and social scenes considerably. New York City in 1994 and ... Read More 
|
||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
