Al Capone and the 1933 World's Fair

August 28, 2017
Hazelgrove (Forging a President: How the Wild West Created Teddy Roosevelt) adds little insight to the life and legacy of Al Capone in this superfluous history of the end of the notorious mobster’s career in the lead-up to the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago. The book is a thinly sourced account that attempts the same equation as Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City by integrating a social history of a world’s fair with a true-crime story. Unfortunately, Hazelgrove’s account is weakened by fictionalized perspectives and the use of sources that he himself takes with a grain of salt, as when he describes the last thoughts of a murder victim who did not speak with anyone after his face was shot off. Later, he uses a quotation from Capone about a biography of Napoleon, but then writes that “it’s hard to believe Al Capone said any of this.” Most strikingly, Hazelgrove provides no sources whatsoever for the chapters that follow the point of view of burlesque dancer Sally Rand. Given the numerous written accounts on the subject of Al Capone in Chicago, readers are better off skipping this one in favor of a more authoritative account, such as John Binder’s Al Capone’s Beer Wars: A Complete History of Organized Crime in Chicago During Prohibition.

September 1, 2017
In the years leading up to 1933, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two rich Chicago kids, murdered another boy for fun; the U.S. was mired in the Great Depression; Charles Lindbergh's baby was kidnapped and murdered; Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany; and Al Capone, who had used Prohibition as a way to expand his criminal empire, was the de facto mayor of Chicago, even though he was, technically, a prison inmate. Amid all this turmoil, the Chicago political powers that be thought it would be a great idea to throw a World's Fair. But how do you fund a $20 million extravaganza when the city is broke? How do you keep the gangsters from running rampant? The fair's planner promised the people of the city that gangsters will be gone by the time of the fair, but how could he possibly follow through? Enter the Secret Six, a group of businessmen who joined forces for a most dangerous mission: to eradicate organized crime in Chicago by the time the fair opened. This is a thrilling and frequently surprising story about larger-than-life people and their larger-than-life ambitions.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)