Bob BatchelorVezi magazinul Libris- O stea, bazat pe 1 voturi
On the 100th anniversary of The Volstead Act taking effect comes the epic, definitive story of the man who cracked the Prohibition system and helped inspire The Great Gatsby.
[Batchelor] makes this flashy bootlegger sound like a folk hero.
Behold the king.
-- New York Times Book Review It's all here: murder, mayhem--and high-priced hooch.
--David Pietrusza, author of 1920 In October 1919, Congress gave teeth to Prohibition.
But the law didn't stop George Remus from amassing a fortune equivalent to billions today.
As one journalist put it, Remus was to bootlegging what Rockefeller was to oil.
The Bourbon King breathes life into America's largest illegal booze operation--greater than that of Al Capone--and a man considered the best criminal defense lawyer of his era.
Remus cracked the system by purchasing an empire of distilleries on Kentucky's Bourbon Trail and using his other profession, as a pharmacist, to profit off legal loopholes.
He stole, bribed, and partied, a roaring lifestyle epitomizing the Jazz Age over which he ruled.
That is, before he came crashing down in one of American history's most sensational murder cases in: a cheating wife, the G-man who seduced her and jailed Remus, and the plunder of a Bourbon Empire.
Remus murdered his wife in cold blood and then shocked a nation, winning his freedom based on a condition he invented--temporary maniacal insanity.
Love, murder, political intrigue, mountains of cash, and rivers of bourbon.
the tale of George Remus is a grand spectacle, and a lens into the dark heart of Prohibition and the mastermind behind one of its richest rackets.
Larger-than-life characters take the reins of this story, a rip-roaring good time for any American history buff or true-crime fan.
-- Publishers Weekly, starred review.
