Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster [Hardcover]

Jonathan Eig (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 27, 2010

Drawing on thousands of pages of recently discovered government documents, wiretap transcripts, and Al Capone’s handwritten personal letters, New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Eig tells the dramatic story of the rise and fall of the nation’s most notorious criminal in rich new detail.

From the moment he arrived in Chicago in 1920, Capone found himself in a world of limitless opportunity. He was an impetuous, affable young man of average intelligence, ill prepared for fame and fortune, whose most notable characteristic was his scarred left cheek. Yet within a few years, Capone controlled an illegal bootlegging business with annual revenue rivaling that of some of the nation’s largest corporations. Along the way he corrupted the Chicago police force and local courts while becoming one of the world’s first international celebrities.

A furious President Herbert Hoover insisted that Capone be brought to justice because the criminal was making a mockery of federal law. Legend credits Eliot Ness and his “Untouchables” with apprehending Capone. But it was the U.S. attorney in Chicago and little-known agents working on direct orders from the White House who compromised their ethics—and risked their lives—to get their man.

The most infamous crime attributed to Capone was the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, a crime that Capone insisted he didn’t commit. Using newly discovered FBI records, Eig offers a surprising explanation for the murders.

Get Capone explores every aspect of the man called “Scarface,” paying particular attention to the myths that have for so long surrounded and obscured him. Capone emerges as a worldly, emotionally complex man, doomed as much by his ego as by his vicious criminality. This is the real Al Capone.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Not since the hunt for John Wilkes Booth... had so many sources been brought to bear in an attempt to jail one man, writes former Chicago magazine editor Eig (Opening Day). But Al Capone eluded them all—even J. Edgar Hoover. In a page-turning account, Eig details the chase for the elusive Capone, dissecting both the man and his myth. Born in Brooklyn in 1899, Alphonse Capone came to a booming, bustling, corrupt, and very thirsty Chicago in 1920, just as Prohibition began. Rising swiftly through the underworld ranks, Capone soon headed a crime syndicate he dubbed the outfit, which dealt in bootleg alcohol, racketeering, drugs, and prostitution. Eig traces the largely unsuccessful efforts by various law enforcement agencies to bring him down. He focuses on U.S. Attorney George E.Q. Johnson, who finally saw Capone convicted in 1931 for tax evasion and conspiring to violate Prohibition laws, leading to an 11-year prison sentence. Using previously unreleased IRS files, Johnson's papers, even notes he discovered for a ghostwritten Capone autobiography, Eig presents a multifaceted portrait of a shrewd man who built a criminal empire worth millions. 16 pages of b&w photos. (May 1)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Certainly enough has been written about Capone to make new books on the gangster and the hunt for him seem extraneous, but Eig takes a fresh approach to his subject by relying on new interviews and IRS files on Capone's 1931 prosecution. Critics praised Eig's solid reporting and ability to draw a rich, historical context and tease out Capone's complexity. "He's wiped away the garbage and given us a man," noted the Chicago Sun-Times, "[s]omeone monstrous, in short, but recognizably human." A few reviewers disagreed about Eig's writing style, and not all enjoyed his details on tax evasion or bought his claims about the St. Valentine's Day massacre. If previous books cover the same material, Eig, in the end, manages to put a more human face on Capone--where possible.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (April 27, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 141658059X
• ISBN-13: 978-1416580591
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #436,316 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jonathan Eig is the best-selling author of "Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig" and "Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season." His most recent book is "Get Capone," which the New York Times called a "gore-spattered thriller." Eig is a former senior writer for The Wall Street Journal. He lives in Chicago with his wife and children. For more information, go to www.getcapone.com or wwww.jonathaneig.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very well researched, May 7, 2010

By 

Deirdre Marie Capone (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster (Hardcover)

My Uncle Al Capone was quoted in the newspapers during his botched up 1931 trial as saying:

"I've got a mother who never misses mass unless she's too sick to get out of bed. I've a wife who loves me as dearly as any woman could love a man. They have feelings. They are hurt by what the newspapers say about me. And I can't tell you what it does to my twelve-year-old son when the other school children, cruel as they are, keep showing him newspaper stories that call me a killer or worse."

"I was willing to go to jail. I could have taken my stretch, come back to my wife and child, and lived my own life. But I'm being hounded by a public that won't give me a fair chance. They want a full show, all the courtroom trappings, the hue and cry, and all the rest. It's utterly impossible for a man of my age to have done all the things I'm charged with. I'm a spook, born of a million minds."

Author Jonathan Eig has done a very good job at researching and reporting some big errors in most of the previously written biographies on Al Capone and his era. I know my cousin Theresa is upset that another book has been written about her grandfather, but unlike Theresa I have read all of the previous books and I have also read Mr. Eigs'. Get Capone gives the reader an understanding of what life was like in the 20"s. It was a time of "kill or be killed". It is not easy for a family member to read such details.

Let's look at the facts. When my grandmother and grandfather immigrated to this country and settled in Brooklyn, the Italians were the low men on the totem pole. What chance did most of them have to be a lawyer or a doctor. The teachers in the schools complained about having them in their class calling them lazy and even claiming they smelled `greazy'. My grandmother arrived with two small boys and pregnant with her third. Six more children were born in Brooklyn.

Al Capone had a chance to succeed at a business he could run and run well. He was once described as a Rockefeller wearing a shoulder holster. There is another quote from my uncle that describes him very well. "This American system of ours, call it Americanism, call it capitalism, call it what you will, gives each and every one of us a great opportunity if we only seize it with both hands and make the most of it."

Mr Eig also gives the reader new information about the St. Valentine's Day event. This information was given to me by my grandfather. I wish it would have been public a long time ago. It would have made a huge difference in my life and in the lives of each Capone family member. I am sure I would have had my dad around for many more years.

23 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Riveting All-American Parable of Ambition, Violence, and Punishment, April 29, 2010

By 

Joel (Brooklyn, NY, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster (Hardcover)

Get Capone is a truly riveting piece of work. It succeeds equally well as: a gin and morality-laced tale of an anti-hero's rise and fall; a nuanced social history of America roaring into modernity; and a page-turning detective thriller about crime-fighting on the cusp of the age of CSI.

Not only does every page of the book advance an incredibly compelling narrative, but it is also full of snappy language - alternatively poetic, hysterical, and profound -- that makes this book a literally delight but never distracts from its central story.

Here are just two of my favorite passages:

"The Great War was over. Men were back home, maybe a little shell-shocked, maybe a little bored, certainly thirsty."

"(Herbert Hoover's) father was a blacksmith, a pious man, with a hot dash of American ambition."

Eig is extraordinarily careful to separate provable fact from the massive tumult of myth and conjecture that still surrounds Capone's life, but he is nevertheless able to masterfully portray Capone as a complex figure who is alternatively ruthless, pathetic, funny, managerially brilliant, and tone-death to the real-life consequences of both his media pronouncements and his chosen profession. Decades before Tony Soprano ended up on Dr. Jennifer Melfi's couch, Eig gives us a multi-faceted portrayal of Capone's ever-fascinating psyche.

47 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't Get Capone, May 9, 2010

By 

Jeffrey C. Gusfield "writer" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster (Hardcover)

Bad news here: as a gangsterologist and Capone era researcher for nearly 40 years, I cannot approve of this book. Jonathan Eig, who has written beautifully about baseball, has jumped into an arena where fantasy and surmise are components of another genre. He has not simply deconstructed history, but disassembled it. With accolades from Erik Larson, Doug Stanton, and film maker Ken Burns, I expected Eig to do what all serious writers have done on this subject - read everything else that has been written, go deep into your research, and make sure you've covered every detail that is extant before you theorize. Mr. Eig has apparently skimmed through; his knowledge on this subject seems cursory.
Just one example is Mr. Eig's "blockbuster" theory about the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre that is based on a letter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation by a patronage worker named Frank T. Farrel. This was obtained from the FBI files under the Freedom of Information Act. Many writers and researchers have had these files, which a few of us call the "lunatic" files, for many years. An amazing assortment of strange people with crime-fighting theories wrote to the FBI, especially after its growing notoriety in the mid 1930's. In 1929, at the time of the massacre, the Bureau of Investigations (later the FBI) office in Chicago was essentially there to enforce Mann Act violations due to the heavy prostitution traffic in the city and surrounds. Originally, while any evidence trails might have been hot, J. Edgar Hoover, who at that time was extremely tenuous in his job, would have nothing to do with the Clark Street massacre or the Chicago gangs, claiming it was local jurisdiction. The lunatic letters came afterward, and Frank T. Farrel's comments to J. Edgar Hoover in a January 28, 1935, handwritten note, purport to be a solution to the Saint Valentine's Day massacre.
Mr. Eig has either missed, or has managed to selectively ignore Chicago Police files, Cook County Coroner's records, State's Attorney's investigations, and most of the important books written on and around this subject. Because this is an Amazon review, it won't serve to record pages of the real facts, nor would I burden you with them. But if you want to read Get Capone, there are at least two dozen books that are better researched, more credible, and have the facts straight which you should read first:

Binder, John J. The Chicago Outfit. Chicago: Arcadia Publishing Inc., 2003

Eghigian, Mars Jr. After Capone: The life and World of Chicago Mob Boss Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti. Nashville, TN: Cumberland House, 2006.

Helmer, William J. and Bilek, Arthur J. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre: The Untold Story of the Gangland Bloodbath That Brought Down Al Capone. Nashville: Cumberland House Publishing, Inc., 2004.

Helmer, William J. and Mattix, Rick. The Complete Public Enemy Almanac. Nashville: Cumberland House Publishing, 2007.

Hoffman, Dennis E. Scarface Al and the Crime Crusaders: Chicago's Private War Against Capone. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993.

Keefe, Rose. Guns and Roses; The Untold Story of Dean O'Banion, Chicago's Big Shot Before Al Capone. Nashville, TN: Cumberland House Publishing, Inc., 2003.

Keefe, Rose. The Man Who Got Away: The Bugs Moran Story. Nashville TN: Cumberland House Publishing, Inc., 2003.

Kobler, John. Capone, The Life and World of Al Capone. New York: Putnam, 1971.
Lyle, John H. The Dry and Lawless Years. New York: Prentice Hall, 1960.

Peterson, Virgil W. Barbarians in Our Midst: A History of Chicago Crime and Politics. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press/Little Brown, 1962.

Roemer, William F. Accardo-The Genuine Godfather. New York: Donald I. Fine, 1995.

Russo, Gus. The Outfit. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2001.

Schoenberg, Robert J., Mr. Capone: The Real and Complete Story of Al Capone. New York: William Morrow & Co., Inc., 1992.

Theoharis, Athan G., ed. The FBI: A Comprehensive Reference Guide. New York: The Oryx Press, 2000.