Satan's Circus: Murder, Vice, Police Corruption, and New York's Trial of the Century » (Reprint)

Mike Dash is the New York Times bestselling author of Tulipomania and Batavia’s Graveyard. He read history at the University of Cambridge and worked for some years as a magazine publisher before becoming a full-time writer. Dash lives with his wife and daughter in London, where he researches in the British Library and writes regularly for the English national press

Nearly five million men and women have served the United States as police officers. Only one has been executed for murder.They called it Satan s Circus a square mile of Midtown Manhattan where vice ruled, sin flourished, and depravity danced in every doorway. At the turn of the twentieth century, murder was so common in the vice district that few people were surprised when the loudmouthed owner of a shabby casino was gunned down on the steps of its best hotel. But when, two weeks later, an ambitious district attorney charged young policeman Charley Becker with ordering the murder, even the denizens of Satan s Circus were surprised. The handsome lieutenant was a decorated hero, the renowned leader of New York s vice-busting Special Squad. Was he a bad cop leading a double life, or a pawn felled by the sinister rogues who ran Manhattan s underworld? With appearances by the legendary and the notorious, Satan s Circus brings to life an almost-forgotten Gotham. Chronicling Charley Be...

The New York Times - Vincent Patrick

The Becker-Rosenthal affair has been reported on over the years by several writers, most notably Andy Logan, whose book Against the Evidence (1970) exhibited the fine craftsmanship she developed in her years as a New Yorker journalist in William Shawn's heyday. Now we have Satan's Circus: Murder, Vice, Police Corruption, and New York's Trial of the Century, by Mike Dash, the author of Tulipomania and Batavia's Graveyard. He has researched the case meticulously, and wisely incorporates into the story enough pertinent New York City history to provide context and atmosphere.

Preface     xi
Wide-Open     1
King of the Bowery     21
Graft     43
Stuss     73
Strong Arm Squad     102
Lefty, Whitey, Dago, Gyp     144
"Good-bye, Herman"     173
Red Queen     193
Tombs     219
Five Minutes to Midnight     249
Retrial     281
Death House     305
Epilogue     331
Notes     355
Bibliography     425
Acknowledgments     433
Index     435