Customer Reviews

The Purple Gang: Organized Crime in Detroit 1910-1945

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I eagerly awaited Paul Kavieff's The Purple Gang and in some ways it was worth the wait. It's certainly the best book written on this notorious gang but mainly because it's the only one. There's a lot of good background info on the gang and some great photos. Because of this, unlike some reviewers, I won't quibble about the writing style and the typos. I read the book from cover to cover and this did not bother me in the slightest. One thing I, as a fellow crime historian, found highly annoying, though, and which detracts from Kavieff's obvious research, is his vagary on dates. A serious history providing otherwise detailed accounts of murders or other events should not begin with "one fateful day in 1923" or "early in 1933." Times, places, etc. are given in detail but dates are maddeningly few in this book on the sordid side of Detroit's history. The latter phrase, leading into the murders of Purple Gangsters Abe Axler and Ed Fletcher, is also way off. Axler and Fletcher were slain on November 26, 1933, certainly not early in the year. Many crime historians also wonder if there may have been a connection between their killings and that of Verne Miller, triggerman in the Kansas City Massacre, who was also slain in Detroit just three days later. These three homicides were heavily covered in the Detroit press at the time and it's a wonder Kavieff didn't delve into this further. The Purples' alleged connection to the St. Valentine's Day Massacre is also highly doubtful. It's a worthwhile book for crime historians and deserving of a second edition but with considerable rewrite.

As another reviewer pointed out, this is an important book because it is the only book on the Purple Gang. How this gang has escaped serious study is beyond me. Growing up in the Detroit area their name has popped up over the years many many times, as some oldtimer recollects or a house that once was a Purple Gang hideout is bulldozed, stuff like that. One time in the Detroit Public Library I went into the history room and they asked for my ID and I jokingly said, "what do you think I am in the Purple Gang or something?" The guy who asked laughed and said "funny you should say that. A writer has been trying to research the Purple Gang, and is having a hell of a time. It seems like most of the police files on them have somehow disappeared". I cannot vouch for that info, but I suppose that it was the author of this book that was doing the research and maybe that explains why there is so little info available. For that reason alone, despite the grammatical errors that others found annoying, I give it 5 stars. I found it a fascinating read.

This book probably contains more information on the individuals comprising the organization commonly known as The Purple Gang than any other single source. In addition to being informative, it effectively de-mythologizes and de-romanticizes the characters involved, and reveals them for what they really were, vicious, violent, and evil men. The one downside in the book is that the prose leaves something to be desired, and I discovered a number of grammatical errors, which were somewhat disconcerting. But for that, I would have considered this a five, rather than a four-star book.

After hearing an interview with the author on a local radio show I couldn't wait to buy this book.

I live in Hamtramck, less than a mile from where the Purples got their start, and I was hoping for a definitive chronicle of their rise and fall, with names, dates and locations that I could relate to. Instead, I got an extended, poorly-edited outline that begged for more detailed and specific exposition.

While I don't regret my purchase I was sorely disappointed and sincerely hope that Mr. Kavieff will expand his research and revise the book with the assistance of a more competent editor and publisher. I also strongly recommend he read Lowell Cauffiel's "Masquerade" for pointers on how to write a masterful tale of the Detroit underbelly.

I agree with the review above. The treatment of the subject matter was anecdotal and superficial. However, I could have lived with that, had the book been more readable on a literary level. Shame on the editor for letting this book be printed in the shape it was. The typos, redundancies and grammatical mistakes were so distracting that I almost didn't finish the book.

I am sorry, this book suffers terribly from a number of problems. I found it to be quite superficial in it's content. Were it only a problem with the author I could overlook it's problems as a sincere effort by an author who was interested enough in the subject to write a book, but the real crime is in the editing and publishing/printing. This book was allowed to be released with so many printing errors that it distracts the reader almost completely. I am sorry to say a book that deals with a subject that I find of great interest does so in such a poor way. It appears that a stronger editor was needed to organize the content and oversee the publication.

If you'e ever wondered exactly what it is that a book editor does, read this volume and discover what happens when a book goes directly to print without any editing, proofreading or even spellchecking. The result is a confused jumble of facts, so poorly organized that the reader has trouble simply trying to figure out the sequence of events described.

Beyond the many spelling and punctuation errors (the author needs a serious tutorial on how to use apostrophes)and the hideous typeface are hundreds of confused descriptions and misuses of words that leave the reader not only confused, but occasionally laughing out loud. Consider the description of Hyman Altma. Having described him as a man who stood 5'8" and weighed 200 lbs, Kavieff goes on to say of this rather short man "Because of his formidable stature..." In a number of sections, the same sentence is repeated two or three times- which makes the reader wonder if even the author had given it a final reading before sending it off to his publisher.

This mess of a book has one redeeming feature- Kavieff has assembled a very complete and fascinating history of the Purple gang. That's if you can manage to read it, and at least two people I know couldn't. Caveat Emptor.

I agree with the other reviewers who were dismayed at the amount of spelling errors (especially with proper names), arbitrary capitalization, incorrect dates, etc. in the hardbound version. That said, the photo insert is excellent and well-reproduced. It's worth getting a used hardbound copy for the photos alone. My favorite is a group portrait of four of the Purples, with one sitting in a chair in front of the other three standing, looking more Hollywood-ethnic-gangster than Hollywood has ever been able to pull off. If a movie is ever made, Brad Garrett of Everybody Loves Raymond is the obvious choice to play Phil Keywell--a dead ringer.

I wonder if Barricade fixed some of the errors when they put out the paperback in 2005.

For some reason which I could never quite fathom, very little has been written over the years about the Purple Gang. While its members were quite violent and controlled racketeering in Detroit during and briefly following Prohibition, they have, for the most part, been widely neglected by most crime writers and historians. Paul R. Kavieff has come forth with a detailed, factual chronicle of the rise and fall of this motley crew. Well researched and supported by an impressive bibliography as well as court and police documents, the Purple Gang reveals the brutal tactics employed by a group of psychopaths in their quest to dominate local gangland activity. In the end it was their own greed and violent ways which ultimately brought about their downfall, but I won't go into that here. I did learn something which I found quite amusing. The spate of "true crime" movies which were released in the U.S. during the late Fifties and early Sixties often contained glaring errors and outright misinformation, either due to a screenwriter's imagination or fear of the libel laws. For example, in "The Bonnie Parker Story" starring Dorothy Provine, the real Clyde Barrow was transformed into "Guy Garrow." You get the idea. In any event, when "The Purple Gang" was released, the young Robert Blake appeared as gang leader "Honeyboy" Willard. I knew of the Bernsteins and the Fletchers and they Keywells, but it wan't until I read Mr. Kavieff's book that I learned there had been a real-life Purple gangster named Joe "Honey" Miller, obviously the individual upon whom Blake's character was based. But I'm getting off track here. The bottom line is, if you want to learn all there is to know about the Purple Gang, read this book.

Great read, a time in Detroit's history that was all but forgotten, writen like you were there. Clears up all the "false Purple Gang Stories". Highly Recommended.