Tom Lucky And George Cokey Flo

The year is 1936. Charles "Lucky" Luciano is the most powerful gangster in America. Thomas E. Dewey is an ambitious young prosecutor hired to bring him down, and Cokey Flo Brown--grifter, heroin addict, and sometimes prostitute--is the witness who claims she can do it. Only a wily defense attorney named George Morton Levy stands between Lucky and a life behind bars, between Dewey and the New York governor's mansion. As the Roaring Twenties give way to the austere reality of the Great Depression, four lives, each on its own incandescent trajectory, intersect in a New York courtroom, introducing America to the violent and darkly glamorous world of organized crime and leaving our culture, laws, and politics forever changed. Based on a trove of newly discovered documents, Tom & Lucky (and George & Cokey Flo) tells the true story of a singular trial in American history: an epic clash between a crime-busting district attorney and an all-powerful mob boss who, in the crucible of a Manhattan courtroom, battle for the heart and soul of a dispirited nation. Blending elements of political thriller, courtroom drama, and hard-boiled pulp, author C. Joseph Greaves introduces readers to the likes of Al Capone, Dutch Schultz, Meyer Lansky, and Bugsy Siegel while taking readers behind the scenes of a corrupt criminal justice system in which sinners may be saints and heroes may prove to be the biggest villains of all.

FINALIST FOR THE HARPER LEE PRIZE FOR LEGAL FICTION 2016FINALIST FOR THE MACAVITY AWARD 2016The year is 1936.Charles 'Lucky' Luciano is the most powerful gangster in America, Mob overlord and bootlegger millionaire. Thomas E. Dewey is an ambitious young prosecutor determined to bring him down, and Cokey Flo Brown - grifter, heroin addict and sometime prostitute - is the witness who claims she can do it.Only a wily defence attorney named George Morton Levy stands between Lucky and a life behind bars, and between Dewey and the New York Governor's mansion.As the Roaring Twenties give way to the austere reality of the Great Depression, four lives, each on its own incandescent trajectory, intersect in a New York courtroom. The events of this seminal Mob trial will introduce America to the violent and darkly glamorous world of organised crime, and leave its culture, laws and politics for ever changed.

A gripping novelization of one of the most colourful - and fateful - courtroom showdowns in US history, between special prosecutor Tom Dewey and Lucky Luciano, the Mob's ruling overlord

Lucile Garrett is just thirteen when she meets Clint Palmer, a charismatic stranger who will forever change her life. The year is 1934, and as the windblown dust of the Great Depression rakes the Oklahoma plains, Palmer offers Lucile and her father, homeless and hungry, the irresistible promise of a better future.But when they follow Palmer to Texas, Lucile's father mysteriously disappears, launching man and girl on an epic journey through the American Southwest: a spree of violence and murder that culminates in one of the most celebrated criminal trials of the era.Based on a true story, Hard Twisted is a chilling tale of survival and redemption, and a young girl's coming of age in a world as cruel as it is beautiful.

Thomas E. Dewey, unfortunately, is probably best remembered by most Americans as the little fellow who lost the 1948 Presidential election to Harry S. Truman in one of the greatest upsets in American history. But thanks to the work of Richard Norton Smith, we can now see Dewey for what he really was - a crusading, crime-busting district attorney; perhaps the best governor New York State ever had; and the man who "modernized" the Republican Party and allowed it to survive through the Depression years and the 1940's. Dewey grew up in a small town in Michigan (his father owned and published the local newspaper), and his rise to fame and fortune came remarkably fast. A compulsive workaholic and "neat freak", Dewey graduated from the University of Michigan and Columbia University Law School in the 1920's. He briefly considered a career as a singer - he had an award-winning baritone voice and liked to sing Broadway tunes in his bathtub - but decided that the law would be a more stable and suitable career. He married an actress, settled in New York City (although he never really liked the Big Apple, and in 1938 he bought a large farm 65 miles north of Manhattan and happily became a weekend farmer and country squire). In 1933 Dewey, only 31, became the assistant District Attorney for Manhattan and helped to send several gangsters to prison. In 1937 he was elected District Attorney for New York City, and he soon achieved national fame as the "gangbuster" - the honest lawyer who sent dozens of famous mafia leaders to jail. His most famous target was "Lucky" Luciano, the mafia boss of all New York and who was even more powerful than Al Capone. Dewey's conviction of Luciano (for running a massive prostitution racket in the New York/New Jersey area) made him a national hero and propelled him into presidential politics at the incredible age of 38. Hollywood even made movies about him. In 1940 he ran for the Republican presidential nomination and nearly won, despite his youth and inexperience. In 1942 he was elected governor of New York. During his twelve years as governor he passed the first state civil rights laws in America, lowered taxes AND cut a budget deficit in half, and founded the State University of New York. He also rooted out political crooks and ran a remarkably honest administration. In 1944 he ran for President and came closer to defeating Franklin D. Roosevelt than any of his four opponents. Dewey's great moment was supposed to have been in 1948, when he was considered to be a sure bet to defeat President Harry S. Truman and restore the Republicans to the White House. All the polls showed Dewey winning easily, and Dewey refused to even mention Truman's name - even as Truman insulted and ridiculed him in speech after speech. This was a costly mistake - Truman won a narrow victory in one of the great political upsets of all time. At the age of 46, Dewey was a "has-been". Smith does a wonderful job of explaining why, despite Dewey's honesty, intelligence, and obvious leadership skills he was never able to win the White House. Partly this was due to Dewey's personality - many people felt him to be cold and calculating, a short man with a bad temper and an arrogant attitude towards others. Smith fills this biography with plenty of delicious quotes (Dewey's secretary - "He was as cold as a February icicle"), and he also offers a superb history of the Republican Party in its lean years between the 1920's and the Eisenhower Fifties. Several parts of this book are so well-written - such as the first chapter covering Election Night in 1948, or the section describing Dewey's beloved farm of Dapplemere in upstate New York and the community of Quaker Hill it was located in - that you get the feeling you're actually there. Although Dewey will probably always be remembered more for his epic 1948 election upset than for his substantial achievements, Smith's biography will at least ensure that those who read this book will come away with a m.

Voted one of The Guardian's top 10 best crime books of all time and one of the best true crime books ever written according to Stylist Shirley Pitts, the eldest of six children was born upside down on 24 November 1934. Her 'career' began by thieving bread off doorsteps and coal from coal carts. Her father's bungled attempts at black marketeering and her dipsomaniac mother's inadequacies made Shirley resolve not only to be a first-class thief but also the best mother her six children could wish for. Before she died Shirley told her story to Lorraine - the story of a generous, brave and beautiful woman with a huge sense of fun and a love of life.