The story of the women who splashed front page headlines in Chicago during Prohibition is told in with prose. They were obviously the inspiration for the jailed women in the musical, Chicago. More than a dozen murderesses preened and strutted in Cook County Jail as they awaited trial, but two stood above all the rest. This book covers extensively the biographical lives of "Stylish Belva" Gaertner and fellow inmate "Beulah" Annan, and the effforts of an intrepid "girl reporter" named Maurine Watkins.
Based on true facts, the author purposely cited every primary and secondary source for every factoid in the book. It reads like a novel, but it is clearly a documentary. And for that reason you don't have to digest every it piece by piece. Told through 20 chapters, I would be shocked if you put this down after reading the first three.
Oddly, the part that fascinated me the most was the author's attempt to capture the time period. A detailed description of the muscle behind William Randolph Hearst and the rival Chicago Tribune newspaper explains the how and why the newspapers operated. You not only get a first-hand account of how people lived during Prohibition, how the police were bribed, how they operated, how newspaper reporters got the information they did and so on was equally fascinating.
The author also points out that reporters and rewrite men of the era did tend to over-dramatize events compared to today's journalistic standards, and in some ways crime reporting was more accurate in the 1920s. Police reporters were given extraordinary access that is unheard of today. But the author admitted that at times he had to double-check the facts to make sure the newspapers were not trying to sensationalize a mole hill.
An entertaining read worthy of a few hours at the beach.
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