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The St. Valentine's Day Massacre: The Untold Story of the Gangland Bloodbath That Brought Down Al Capone Paperback – Illustrated, August 1, 2006

by William J. Helmer (Author), Arthur J. Bilek (Author)

4.5 94 ratings

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A Case of Bad Timing and Poor Judgment

The machine-gun murders of seven men on the morning of February 14, 1929, by killers dressed as cops became the gangland “crime of the century.” Or so the story went. Since then it has been featured in countless histories, biographies, movies, and television specials. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, however, is the first book-length treatment of the subject. Challenging the commonly held assumption that Al Capone ordered the wholesale slayings to gain supremacy in the Chicago underworld, authors William J. Helmer and Arthur J. Bilek assert the crime was a case of bad timing and poor judgment by a secret crew from St. Louis known to Capone’s mostly Italian mob as the “American boys.”

The target of the murder squad was indeed Bugs Moran, but the American boys, who were dressed as policemen and arrived in two bogus police cars, entered the garage where the massacre took place before Moran arrived. Not knowing who Moran was or what he looked like, the counterfeit cops stupidly killed everyone to make sure they got their man.

Based on a careful review of reliable evidence, a critical reading of news accounts of the time, a 1935 manuscript written by the widow of one of the gunmen, and a lookout’s long-suppressed confession, The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre is a fresh new look at the crime that captured the nation’s imagination. In the end, the machine-gun bullets heard ’round the world marked the beginning of the end for Al Capone.

About the Author

William J. Helmer is the author of The Gun That Made the Twenties Roar and the coauthor of Dillinger: The Untold Story and Baby Face Nelson. He lives in Boerne, Texas.

Arthur J. Bilek was chief of the Cook County Sheriff’s Police, a member of the Chicago Crime Commission, and a professor at Loyola University. He lives in Evanston, Illinois.

Print length

336 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Cumberland House Publishing
Publication date

August 1, 2006
Dimensions

6.84 x 0.91 x 9.16 inches
ISBN-10

1581825498
ISBN-13

978-1581825497
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cumberland House Publishing; 1st edition (August 1, 2006)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1581825498
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1581825497
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.7 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.84 x 0.91 x 9.16 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #640,247 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #965 in Organized Crime True Accounts
- #2,074 in Criminology (Books)
- #10,722 in U.S. State & Local History

Customer Reviews:
4.5 94 ratings

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William J. Helmer
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Born in Iowa City, IA in 1936. Family left Iowa City early on and Bill grew up in the Mexican border town of Pharr, TX, and prefers to celebrate his birthday as one hundred years to the day after the Fall of the Alamo.
Atttended The University of Texas at Austin, Bachelor of Journalism, 1959, MA in History, 1968.
Politics: "Formerly an FDR Democrat turned fanatically moderate libertarian."
Military/Wartime Service: U.S. Naval Reserve, 1953-61; became Radioman First Class.
Memberships: Amateur Radio operator W5AJR (retired), Discordian Society, Bavarian Illuminati. Founding Member of The John Dillinger Died for You Society.
Currently lives in Boerne, TX.
CAREER
Editor of the following:The Texas Caver, The Texas Ranger, Escapade, Aramco World, True West,1955-1995
University of Texas at Austin: Supervisor of Student Magazines, 1965-66
National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence: Staff Member, Washington, DC, 1968-69
Playboy (in Chicago): Senior Editor, 1969-1995.
Harper's, Texas Observer, Texas Monthly, Chicago Magazine, Chicago Reader, other magazines, 1955-present:Contributor of articles (including humor, under pseudonym Horace Naismith)
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Arthur J. Bilek
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Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more
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4.5 out of 5

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J. Collins

Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2008

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Most people know at least the outline of the St Valentine's Day Massacre: Hoods dressed as cops mowed down members of the Moran gang, who were lured to the SMC Cartage Company to take consignment of liquor from Detroit. Moran, the primary target, escaped from Capone's killers. In this account, Messrs Blek and Helmer make use of a previously neglected primary source; a memoir from the wife of one of the participants. They also investigate the FBI archives, and make a convincing case that Hoover deliberately withheld information that would've solved the murders. Along the way, the authors also show that the commonly accepted explanation for Moran's top leaders being in the same place at the same time, is seriously flawed. First, these guys did NOT do manual labor (unloading whiskey cases); they weren't dressed for it-or a daylong trip to Detroit. Second, due to increased US Customs activity on the Great Lakes, Canadian exporters insisted on "Cash and Carry"-so a "delivery" was unlikely at best. Finally, even after the massacre, the average Chicagoan, while knowing of Capone, considered him a Cicero gangster even in 1929. Most of his reputation was built after his downfall in the 1930s.
The authors also tie in the Frankie Yale murder, and show how at the time revolutionary ballistics research linked Yale's murder to the massacre; but neither the press nor the police were overly interested in that fact (which would've directly implicated Capone). The account goes beyond just the massacre and its aftermath, to clearly show how it contributed to Capone's decline in Chicago crime. The book is fully footnoted, and includes an excellent chronology of organized crime in Chicago, from Big Jim Colossimo around 1910 to the suicide of Frank Nitti. Overall, if you have an interest in the massacre itself, or in the gangster era, this is a highly recommended resource.

5 people found this helpful

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fred soleberry

Good read

Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2019

Verified Purchase

Like how it gave u a play, by play of how the massacre occurred.

One person found this helpful

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Dansie Scoggan

LOVE THIS BOOK!!

Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2014

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Awesome, awesome book!! I have wanted to know about the St Valentines Day Massacre for a long time and this book has shown me!! Well written and explanatory! Excellent!!

One person found this helpful

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Mobman

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre: The Untold Story...

Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2010

Verified Purchase

It arrived in a timely fashion and in the condition that was advertised. My husband enjoys this era and is about in the middle and is enjoying it so far. Dealing with Amazon has been a win win for me.

One person found this helpful

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Julie

Strong Points Or Weak Points? It's Your Preference.

Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2008

Verified Purchase

If you enjoy books that have 1001 points of trivia in them, you'll love this. It's jam packed with facts. It's clear the authors researched exhaustively.

For me it was exhausting, too. Some true crime books have a tendency to deteriorate into an spider web of tangentially related facts and read like reports instead of narratives. This is one of them. I now know the street addresses of dozens of gangsters, a dozen pseudonyms for each as well as multiple spelling variants for those pseudonyms. I know the names of relatives. I know the names of various reporters and photographers and the paths they took to the crime scene. We got a seeming word for word recital of every meeting of the coroner's investigation, were told which meetings got postponed and by whom, were informed of the several addresses they were held at and even the exact room numbers. We got a roll call of who was present. After slogging through pages and pages of testimony that to me seemed banal and utterly uninformative, the author sums it up by declaring that the coroner's investigation yielded nothing much of interest.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. So why did we get the blow by blow instead of the few leads that actually contributed to the investigation? Why did we hear about every dead end in detail, only to be informed that... it was indeed a dead end.

And yet, with all that information, as another reviewer pointed out, Bugs Moran and the other North Siders were glossed over.

So that's my take on it. If you are fond of books that are like tossed salads of facts, this is your kind of book. It's a trivia lover's dream. If you like an author to sift out the important details and give you a sequential, streamlined narrative (that's me) this book will drag.

19 people found this helpful

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C L Boren

Solid Historical Work

Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2013

Verified Purchase

The authors have done a thorough and accurate job. No Capone melodrama, just the facts, ma'am. Treats the whole affair with a who's who and what's what.

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Joy Williams

Contained information regarding my Grandfather who was a "Gangster" during that time.

Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2019

Verified Purchase

It contained many interesting facts but was not always an easy read. Seemed to repeat several things and for me it seemed a bit jumbled. With that, it really was well written to make you see and feel how times were during the Capone era.

2 people found this helpful

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Donna R. Walters

A must read book -

Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2014

Verified Purchase

A nicely written and very factual and informative book about the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. It's difficult to put down once you start reading it.

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