NCJ Number
155933
Date Published
1994
Length
701 pages
Annotation
This biography portrays Al Capone as an American legend, the mythic archcriminal and role model for scores of lesser crime bosses, but also describes him as a complex, influential, and perhaps misunderstood figure.
Abstract
The most notorious gangster ever, in a nation that admired famous criminals and lived on the edge of frontier violence, Capone reached a pinnacle of celebrity that made him a folk hero and the embodiment of evil and corruption. Capone was a vicious killer, thief, pimp, and racketeer. At the same time, he was a complex man who loved the limelight and managed to seize the public's attention with his flamboyance, daring, erratic moods, and the flagrant way he treated law enforcement authorities. He was also a devoted son and a loving father and was often generous to those in need. Capone grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and his move to Chicago was followed by an almost meteoric rise through the ranks of gangsters who ran that city. To escape the pressures and the heat of Chicago, Capone spent many summers at a country retreat in Michigan where he was accepted and protected by the community as a hero and as an upstanding citizen. The biography of Capone characterizes life in the 1920's and 1930's and the gangster environment in which Capone carved out a sinister and notorious private empire. Photographs