Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

This thoroughly-researched, richly explicative history of Al Capone and his times should be in the library of anyone who enjoys reading about 20th Century crime, and its roots; Al Capone, Prohibition, or Chicago-- it is authoritative on all counts. "Get Capone" is excellently written, and painstakingly produced, without a fault. The author knows his economic history, too: his contrast of Capone's Chicago with the excesses of Wall Street are succinct.
"Get Capone" lays to rest the myth of Eliot Ness, whose role in convicting Al Capone has been greatly over-romanticized since the 1950s. Jonathan Eig rightly credits the quieter law enforcement figures who ended Capone's crime career. Eig is a scholar who recaptures Pres. Herbert Hoover's role in chasing Chicago's gangsters.
If you enjoyed Bryan Burrough's "Public Enemies," you will love this book.
For that matter, if you enjoyed "Luckiest Man" as much as my two sons and I did, "Get Capone" is another book for your permanent library. Jonathan Eig is a biographer on a par with Evan Thomas, Walter Isaacson, or Robert Caro.

Author Jonathan Eig has written three books and all of them have been blockbusters. I have two biographies on Al Capone, and both of them are worthy additions to one's library. However, Eig's latest effort on the infamous Chicago gangster tops them all. I initially wondered what his biography could offer that wasn't in the previous two I have in my library, and I have been anxiously anticipating the release of this book. Mr. Eig's biography is not a rehash of the gangland killings that took place during the 1920s, although they obviously must play a part. In addition to interviewing several members of the Capone family author Eig had access to papers that previous Capone authors did not. I also enjoy the author's unique writing style in describing the various incidents throughout the book. An example would be the death of Hymie Weiss on North State Street next to the Holy Name Cathedral. We have heard several versions on what actually took place and who was involved in the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre, and author Eig has his own theory based on a letter written in 1935. It is quite interesting and could very well answer several previously unanswered questions. Perhaps Capone wasn't involved at all.

The main heroes of the book are the incorruptible U.S. Attorney George E. Q. Johnson and Frank Wilson of the U.S. Bureau of Internal Revenue who built the case against Al Capone. Being unable to obtain a conviction for the numerous murders attributable to Capone they achieved a conviction on a lesser charge, that on income tax evasion. This is now done routinely in courtrooms today.

Unlike Capone's mentor, Johnny Torrio, Capone had a weakness of not maintaining a low profile. Does John Gotti come to mind? The city of Chicago acquired an image of a gangster on every corner blasting someone away with the gun that made the twenties roar. This was a reputation the city didn't want to project to tourists.

We also get to know the personalities of several of the decade's role players quite well. Jack "Greasy Thumb" Guzik, Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti, Johnny Torrio, George "Bugs" Moran, and Crooked Mayor "Big Bill the Builder" Thompson to name a few. Use your imagination and you can see that, yes, Thompson DID resemble a pigeon. Cemetery connoisseurs may want to pay a visit to the Mount Carmel Cemetery located in the western Chicago suburb of Hillside where several of these gangsters, including Capone, are buried.

As an aside to the author who may want to make a few minor corrections in the paperback edition of the book: Page 101 (near the bottom the word "with" is repeated), page 213 (near the bottom the word "known" should be "know"), and page 286 the last paragraph (the first sentence the first "was" should be omitted). Finally on the top of page 168 one of the murder twins Albert Anselmi, is incorrectly referred to as "Robert." In no way do these errors detract from the book. I simply put them here in case he may want to make corrections in the paperback.

Author Jonathan Eig has written books on two of my favorite subjects, baseball and true crime. I have come to know that his books are of superior quality and I can't wait to see what he has in store for us next. He is quite simply my favorite author.

I was really hoping to get me some new and indepth information from this much awaited book. With all the publicity and hoopla building up to it, I now find that it just merely left me open jawed and disappointed! The dust jacket looked so damned cool too! I thought the author had the holy grail of new info by the way it was building up to it's release. Don't we all know Eliot Ness wasn't the guy who brought down Capone? Is the Hollywood version of history over the years merely accepted as fact? Photo captions are wrong, as one previous astute reviewer had noted. I can't believe the author can toot his own horn by claiming in the book that he, and only he, came across the FBI massacre letter, and yet this same meticulous researcher couldn't catch the simple photo errors such as the baseball one at Comiskey park, No, it wasn't Wrigley. Didn't he write two baseball books before this one? Where does one take the liberty to assume that Capone had Weiss and Drucci attacked in front of the Standard Oil building for their $13,000 roll? Does anyone honestly believe that Al Capone needed their money? And especially at a time, when his organization made like 100 million dollars a year? That was like freakin peanuts to him! Drucci playing golf with Capone in 1927? I have a hard time with that statement. Those two hated each other with a passion and Drucci died on April 4,1927. You ever play golf in Arkansas in March? Remember, there was probably no global warming back then. The major sticking point I have is with his new and bold massacre theory. I would concede in trying to make the author's theory work, if he somehow had taken all the well known police evidence and somehow systematically knocked them down one by one. His theory, through an FBI archived letter written by a nut claims that "Three Fingered" Jack White killed the 7 men rage. Let's see, White had three months since his cousin was shot and still had enough boiling rage in him to perpetrate this heinous crime? If so, then the guy was a raging lunatic! This new massacre theory was proven as a nonsensical idea a few weeks ago on a television news report shown on our local ABC 7 news. Except for this letter, the author has really no hard evidence to support his theory, even though he had said in an interview that he checked out all the facts in the FBI letter? What I would like to know is what facts did the author check out exactly? Alas, he stumbled across the letter in the publicly accessible FBI files and instantly thinks that he has found a new hook to solving the massacre. Yeah! That'll sell books! He wants you to think so too. It was a letter which was easily dismissed by the authorities and Coroner Bundesen investigating the massacre. Just merely associating this book to a couple of Capone relatives and new photos does not make this the "Ultimate" book on Capone. I'd much rather read a book written by an actual Capone relative than this. This book is simply all dressed up with no where to go! Those who just picked up this book with no prior knowledge of Capone will find this book a really "Explosive" and "Tell all" work until they go read other books on the subject. For all others who have the knowledge and still yet want to read this thing first hand for themselves, then do yourself a big, big favor. Save your money and wait till it shows up at the local library or in the bargain bin at abebooks. I kissed my $24 bucks good-bye! So live and learn. I will no longer jump in a book blindly by believing all the hype that first surrounds it through reviews and the press. I have heard that these press releases are paid by the publishing company who promotes the darn thing. After I finished reading it, I've noticed that I really didn't "Get Capone" after all, I just merely "Got Stiffed" instead!

Future buyers of this title should take a look at Allen Barra's excellent and truthful book review for this title on the net. Click and paste the below entry in google search to find it.

LATEST BIOGRAPHY OF AMERICA'S MOST FAMOUS GANGSTER FALLS FLAT

First, let me admit I have an axe to grind. Big Jon was supposed to come to Kingston, Jamaica and cover a band of aging pirates and ne're-do-wells foraying into the horseracing biz. Instead, Big Jon elected to stay home with the wife and write GET CAPONE.

I argued that the world did not need another epic on Big Al. Having grown up in Chicago, Al and the Union Stock Yards were our base mythology, how we were known wherever we went. "No, ma'am, I don't have a tommy gun. No, sir, I don't know if Mr. Ness and Mr. Nitti were lovers." But if Jon Eig has anything, it's a commitment to Fact; it's his brand. So if Jon tells us he has 10,000 Capone documents no one's ever seen before, he does. If he then tells us a massively different story of Al Capone, I believe him. I'm stunned, but I believe what I read

Is that important in 2010? Oh, yeah. GET CAPONE isn't just Al, it's America pole-dancing on her criminal/success axis, be it in your congressman's DC office or Halliburton's boardroom. Crime works, baby--call it "derivatives trading" or the Northern Alliance. And Al Capone was American crime's first corporate Jesus. GET CAPONE should be a civics textbook, the "unvarnished truth" as we love to say while we varnish it. For the first time I can remember, GET CAPONE looks at what really happened and why, and why it's the religion that engulfs us today.

GET CAPONE is one of the best non-fiction crime books I've ever read, crafted with the precision and backroom truth of KILLING PABLO and BLACKHAWK DOWN. Even if you don't care about the true pedigree of organized crime, buy this book so Jon will write another. America needs someone who deals in Facts to explain how a syphilitic Al Capone married Bernie Madoff and gave birth to a new ruling class who doesn't have to apologize for picking your pocket or killing your children.

Charlie Newton
CALUMET CITY

I've dedicated 23 years to this subject and quite honestly, I can't vouch for this one at all. It just didn't move me as Schoenberg's or Kobler's Capone book did. This book comes off as though it was written for someone who hasn't any prior knowledge of Capone. I can see that some honestly gave it 5 stars by stating that the subject isn't their thing, but that they enjoyed the book all and all, which is a fair thing to say. On the other hand, for the experienced at this subject, the book simply has revamped old liners from past Capone biographies written in Eig's fluffy style. I'll honestly admit that the guy can write, the photos and his writing can make it easy to swallow, but the research and errors made me cringe several times. Especially the far fetched massacre theory. White had no reason to kill the Gusenbergs, nor Moran in revenge because White's cousin Billy Davern, was himself a Northsider and was most probably whacked by Jack McGurn as Goddard's ballistic records show. Other Police records show that Jack White was in prison at the time of the massacre for killing a cop and not for stealing hubcaps. No one in the jail system would take the chance of letting a cop killer out to whack 7 people and go back in. This especially after the Lake and Druggan scandal in 1925. The jail keepers ended up doing jail time for that mess up. If this new theory was even remotely true, then White would have fled on the spot and never would have returned to jail.
I have seen no proof in his book to make me believe otherwise than the already accepted facts of Burke and company as the massacre killers. Eig doesn't attempt to explain away all this proven evidence to dissuade the current train of thought of historybuff readers. As far as Al not having anything to do with it? A person couldn't pass gas in Chicago without Al having knowledge of it. Al had paid eyes and ears all over the city by paying lookouts in shop keepers, shoeshine boys and newspaper stand owners. Also you would need to explain Al's wise move in being interrogated by Florida officials at the exact time the massacre was going down.

The tax thing? No secret plot here! The trial is well described by Eig, but nothing new as the Government had been hunting down gangsters via the tax angle for years before they ever came after big Al. Nitti, Guzik, Ralph Capone, Druggan and Lake all went up to bat on the same tax beef and all lost against the Government. If one thing was biased against Al, then it was the sentence. Way exaggerated, but necessary to make an example of him for the others remaining. Alot of people hated or were jealous of Al, especially since his face graced the cover of Time in March of 1930.

Other disappointments with this book were erroneous info, photo captions. EX: Mae Capone had an overbite and had to settle for Al because she wouldn't have another chance to marry another man? I thought she was rather quite good looking, as do most people who email me. Moran a dimwit? Can't be all that dumb if he once ran businesses and outlasted all his rivals. He had the many battle scars to prove it. Joe Howard's murder wasn't all that dramatic. Capone sent in his guy named Tony Bagnio to make sure Howard was nice and drunk beforehand. Howard was a cheapskate and couldn't refuse drinks offered by Capone's spotter. All Capone had to do was walk in and shoot him.


I'm glad I didn't invest $30 on this book. I got mine for 95 cents on ebay. Invest your money on other fine books dealing with the Capone trial such as The Trial of Al Capone by Robert Ross, Frank Wilson; The Man Who Got Capone by Frank Speiring, Al Capone and the Crime Crusaders by Dennis E. Hoffman. The latter fine book is written by the Professor which Eig bought the George E. Q. Johnson papers from.
In my opinion, and at this stage, another book on Capone wasn't really needed.

Again, only history and time will tell. This guy lists me in the credits of his book. I helped in no part, nor would I ever want to be associated to someone who has one of my Capone family photos (Mae and Sonny in the 1970's) on his website without my permission or credit. Getting it from someone else (Deirdre Capone, for whom it was solely intended) without my permission, does not make it at all okay. It just shows what a class act this guy is!

Mario Gomes
Myalcaponemuseum

This is a gripping look at the nation's most infamous gangster of the Prohibition era (1920-1933) or perhaps any era. Author Jonathan Eig describes Capone's beginnings as a low-level mobster under the tutelage of Johnny Torio when Prohibition began in 1920. We follow Capone's rapid rise to the top of an organization devoted to bootlegging, speakeasies, brothels and gambling. We learn about Chicago's competing bootleggers, their violent feuds, plus payoffs and government corruption. Eig shows how prohibition laws were routinely ignored in Chicago (and other places), as many citizens and public officials (including Mayor Bill Thompson) disdained the nation's questionable ban on booze. Then there is Capone's surprisingly tranquil family life, his efforts at respectability, and his interviews with the many reporters that found him to be good copy. Eig also examines the government's long-term efforts to nail Capone, efforts backed by President Herbert Hoover. Leading the charge was U.S. Attorney George E.Q. Johnson with his methodical efforts to gather evidence on Capone's income and then indict him for tax evasion. We also see that Judge James Wilkerson used questionable tactics, refusing the government's plea bargain where Capone agreed to plead guilty in return for a three-year setence. Wilkerson also stacked the jury pool with older white protestants in a time when there was far more bigotry against ethnic Catholics. Finally, we follow Capone from his 1931 trial, to seven plus years of imprisonment (mostly at Alcatraz), to return to his Miami home with his mind increasingly wrecked from advanced syphilis.

Author Jonathan Eig is a Chicagoan who employed a host of documents, personal papers, and original sources in writing this nicely readable book. Eig's conclusions occasionally seem debatable - he suggests that Capone may not have ordered the St. Valentine's Day massacre, and at times he seems to make this violent gangster almost sympathetic. Still, this is a gripping read about Capone, prohibition, and Chicago history. My grandfather once parked cars in a garage right by the Lexington Hotel, and recalled that Capone was a real charmer who would arrive in an entourage with several cars of bodyguards.

Sixty-plus years after his death, Al Capone's name has become synonymous with "gangster". His life and times have been examined by countless books, TV shows, films, documentaries. At this late date, the question must be asked; Can anything new be learned? Is another biography of Al Capone really necessary? Jonathan Eig's Get Capone stands out amongst the crowd by challenging some long-held conclusions about Al's life and career. However, as a so-called "gangsterologist" and published author myself, I cannot recommend this book. While factual errors are inevitable in any history work, there are quite a few in Get Capone. Most of them could have been avoided by comprehensive research and fact-checking. While reading the book, I got the feeling that the author merely skimmed over the top of his subject matter without going into great detail. For much of its length, Get Capone is a rehash of the usual stuff (for want of a better term) found in previous Capone biographies. While Eig's descriptive prose makes for easy reading, there is nothing new to be learned.

Much of the recent hoopla surrounding Get Capone has to do with its proposed solution to the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Based almost entirely on the word of a single letter and some creative speculation, this theory alleges that Al Capone had nothing to with Chicago's most notorious gangland hit, and that the actual culprits were Capone gunsel William "Three-Fingered Jack" White and a handful of Chicago cops. According to the letter writer, Frank T. Farrell, the murders were allegedly carried out in retaliation for the murder of White's cousin, William Davern, by one of the Gusenberg brothers. Not only does this theory contradict the known evidence in the massacre case (there's more than people realize), it makes no sense. If real cops were responsible, why would they wear uniforms identifying themselves as such while committing a mass murder? The book's claim that the Farrell letter was "recently discovered in the FBI archives and never before revealed" is flat-out untrue. The Farrell letter has been available for public viewing on the FBI's website (along with the rest of the massacre file) since 1998. Indeed, the letter was investigated and dismissed back in 1935 by CPD detectives and Cook County Coroner Herman Bundesen. Cook County Jail records solidly refute Jack White's participation in the massacre, as he was securely locked up for a cop killing on February 14, 1929. Last but not least, William Davern was almost certainly clipped by Capone hitman Jack McGurn (the bullet that killed him was matched to one of McGurn's pistols by ballistics pioneer Calvin Goddard), and not the Gusenbergs. Again, careful research could have caught all this. The end result is akin to taking a single thread (the Farrell letter) and attempting to weave an entire quilt. Upon close examination, this quilt comes apart with one good tug.

In sum, I don't believe this book really needed to be written. John Kobler's Capone and Robert Schoenberg's Mr. Capone remain the definitive works on "Snorky".