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The riveting story of how the murder of femme fatale Vivian Gordon in 1931 brought about the downfall of the mayor of New York City and led to the end of Tammany Hall's dominance. Vivian Gordon went out before midnight in a velvet dress and mink coat. Her body turned up the next morning in a desolate Bronx park, a dirty clothesline wrapped around her neck. At her stylish Manhattan apartment, detectives discovered notebooks full of names - businessmen, socialites, gangsters. And something else: a letter from an anti-corruption commission established by Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Led by the imperious Judge Samuel Seabury, the commission had uncovered a police conspiracy to frame women as prostitutes. Had Vivian Gordon been executed to bury her secrets? As FDR pressed the police to solve her murder, Judge Seabury pursued the trail of corruption to the top of Gotham's powerful political machine - the infamous Tammany Hall.
About the Author
Michael Wolraich is a journalist and historian who writes about historical events to illuminate modern politics. He founded the political blog dagblog.com, and his writing has appeared at The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, New York Magazine, CNN, Reuters, TalkingPointsMemo.com, and Pando Daily. Wolraich grew up in Iowa City and now lives in New York.
