About this item
"A brilliantly researched tale of greed, ambition, and our desperate need to believe in magic, it's history that captures America as it really was--and always will be. A great read." - Douglas Perry, author of Eliot Ness It was a time of unregulated madness. And nowhere was it madder than in Chicago at the dawn of the Roaring Twenties. As Model Ts rumbled down Michigan Avenue, gang war shootings announced Al Capone's rise to underworld domination. Bedecked partygoers thronged to the Drake Hotel's opulent banquet rooms, corrupt politicians held court in thriving speakeasies, and the frenzy of stock market gambling was rampant. Enter a slick, smooth-talking, charismatic lawyer named Leo Koretz, who enticed hundreds of people (who should have known better) to invest as much as $30 million--upwards of $400 million today--in phantom timberland and nonexistent oil wells in Panama.
About the Author
"Jobb's true crime stories are not to be missed" - CrimeReadsI specialize in true crime and I'm drawn to stories that have been overlooked or forgotten - hidden gems tucked away in the attics of history. My latest book, The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream, recreates Scotland Yard's hunt for a Victorian Era serial killer who murdered as many as 10 people in Britain, the U.S. and Canada. I discovered the subject of my previous book, Empire of Deception - Leo Koretz and his amazing oil swindle in 1920s Chicago - by chance, while doing other research. I spotted a reference to his arrest in Nova Scotia and I knew instantly it was a great story. Empire of Deception won the Crime Writers of Canada award for best true crime book of 2015, was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction, and was named the Chicago Writers Association's Book of the Year. I'm also the author of two collections of Nova Scotia true crime stories - Daring, Devious & Deadly (2020) and Madness, Mayhem & Murder (2021) .I write a monthly true crime column for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and my features and book reviews appear in CrimeReads, The Irish Times, the Washington Independent Review of Books, Canada's History magazine and other major publications. I teach in the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction program at the University of King's College in Halifax. Website: www.deanjobb.com Twitter: @DeanJobb
