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Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago Kindle Edition

by Max Allan Collins (Author), A. Brad Schwartz (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.4 433 ratings

Editors' pick Best History

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The definitive history of gangster-era Chicago—a landmark work that is as riveting as a thriller

A CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

"REVOLUTIONIZES OUR UNDERSTANDING OF AL CAPONE AND ELIOT NESS." — Matthew Pearl • "GRIPPING. READS LIKE A NOVEL." — Chicago magazine • "AN EXTRAORDINARY ACHIEVEMENT." — Sara Paretsky • "ESSENTIAL. THE TELLING IS SO EXPERTYLY DONE, IT'S HARD TO RESIST.” — Seattle Times• “A VERY GOOD BOOK. READS WITH FORCE AND STYLE.” — Chicago Tribune • “A DEFINITIVE ACCOUNT. MASTERFULLY WRITTEN.” — CrimeReads

Includes 115 photographs and a map of gangland Chicago.

In 1929, thirty-year-old gangster Al Capone ruled both Chicago's underworld and its corrupt government. To a public who scorned Prohibition, "Scarface" became a local hero and national celebrity. But after the brutal St. Valentine's Day Massacre transformed Capone into "Public Enemy Number One," the federal government found an unlikely new hero in a twenty-seven-year-old Prohibition agent named Eliot Ness. Chosen to head the legendary law enforcement team known as "The Untouchables," Ness set his sights on crippling Capone's criminal empire.

Today, no underworld figure is more iconic than Al Capone and no lawman as renowned as Eliot Ness. Yet in 2016 the Chicago Tribune wrote, "Al Capone still awaits the biographer who can fully untangle, and balance, the complexities of his life," while revisionist historians have continued to misrepresent Ness and his remarkable career.

Enter Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz, a unique and vibrant writing team combining the narrative skill of a master novelist with the scholarly rigor of a trained historian. Collins is the New York Times bestselling author of the gangster classic Road to Perdition. Schwartz is a rising-star historian whose work anticipated the fake-news phenomenon.

Scarface and the Untouchable draws upon decades of primary source research—including the personal papers of Ness and his associates, newly released federal files, and long-forgotten crime magazines containing interviews with the gangsters and G-men themselves. Collins and Schwartz have recaptured a bygone bullet-ridden era while uncovering the previously unrevealed truth behind Scarface's downfall. Together they have crafted the definitive work on Capone, Ness, and the battle for Chicago.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A gritty dual biography reveals the underworld of crime and corruption in 1920s and '30s America...A fast-paced tale related with novelistic drama.

-- "Kirkus Reviews"

This audiobook is a fascinating examination of the terrible times when the Mob ruled Chicago, with Stefan Rudnicki doing a pretty solid job of substituting for Walter Winchell's staccato Untouchables delivery...The chronological work follows the lives of the two men and is impossible to turn off. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.

-- "AudioFile"

A definite account. Masterfully written.

-- "CrimeReads"

Revolutionizes our understanding of Al Capone and Eliot Ness beyond myths and misinformation with groundbreaking research and effortless storytelling that will thrill historians and general readers alike.

-- "Matthew Pearl, New York Times bestselling author"

The telling is so expertly done, it's hard to resist.

-- "Seattle Times"

A gripping take on Chicago's past that reads like a novel.

-- "Chicago magazine"

Collins and Schwartz present a balanced view of the role of Ness in capturing Capone...The result is an informed and valuable addition to the numerous books about Capone and Ness.

-- "Publishers Weekly"

From the Back Cover

A CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

Featuring a new preface and bonus material

The definitive history of gangster-era Chicago—a landmark work that is as riveting as a thriller

In 1929, thirty-year-old gangster Al Capone ruled both Chicago’s underworld and its corrupt government. To a public who scorned Prohibition, “Scarface” became a local hero and national celebrity. But after the brutal St. Valentine’s Day Massacre transformed Capone into “Public Enemy Number One,” the federal government found an unlikely new hero in a twenty-seven-year-old Prohibition agent named Eliot Ness. Chosen to head the legendary law enforcement team known as “The Untouchables,” Ness set his sights on crippling Capone’s criminal empire.

Today, no underworld figure is more iconic than Al Capone and no lawman as renowned as Eliot Ness. In Scarface and the Untouchable, Max Allan Collins, the New York Times bestselling author of the gangster classic Road to Perdition, and A. Brad Schwartz, a rising-star historian whose work anticipated the fake news phenomenon, draw upon decades of primary source research, including the personal papers of Ness and his associates, newly released federal files, and long-forgotten crime magazines containing interviews with the gangsters and G-men themselves.

Recapturing a bygone bullet-ridden era while uncovering the previously unrevealed truth behind Scarface’s downfall, Collins and Schwartz have crafted the definitive work on Capone, Ness, and the battle for Chicago.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0728GJ6W5
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mariner Books; Reprint edition (August 14, 2018)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 14, 2018
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 49157 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 739 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #516,414 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #385 in Biographies of Organized Crime
- #850 in Biographies & Memoirs of Criminals
- #2,033 in Crime & Criminal Biographies

Customer Reviews:
4.4 433 ratings

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A. Brad Schwartz
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A. Brad Schwartz is a writer and historian, currently a doctoral candidate in American history at Princeton University. He has co-authored two books with Road to Perdition creator Max Allan Collins: "SCARFACE AND THE UNTOUCHABLE: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago" (William Morrow, 2018) and "ELIOT NESS AND THE MAD BUTCHER: Hunting America’s Deadliest Unidentified Serial Killer at the Dawn of Modern Criminology" (William Morrow, 2020).
Brad's first book, "BROADCAST HYSTERIA: Orson Welles's War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News" (Hill and Wang, 2015), draws upon a trove of long-lost listener letters to reexamine the infamous 1938 "panic broadcast." The book is based on the groundbreaking research Brad conducted as part of his senior thesis in history at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He also co-wrote a 2013 episode of the PBS series AMERICAN EXPERIENCE about the "War of the Worlds" broadcast, based in part on his thesis research.
Brad has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Vanity Fair, Smithsonian, and The Daily Beast. In 2014, Brad’s screenplay THE WOLF was voted onto “The Hit List,” a catalog of Hollywood’s favorite unproduced spec scripts. He divides his time between East Lansing, Michigan, and Princeton, New Jersey.
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Max Allan Collins
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Max Allan Collins is a New York Times bestselling author of original mysteries, a Shamus award winner and an experienced author of movie adaptions and tie-in novels. His graphic novel ROAD TO PERDITION was made into a major motion picture by Tom Hanks's production company, Playtone.
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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

433 global ratings

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Edward P. Morrissey Jr.

Terrfic And Compelling From Start To Finish!

Reviewed in the United States on August 17, 2018

Verified Purchase

One of the best, and best researched, true crime narratives published in a long time, Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz’s Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago is a thrilling account of the efforts by Treasury Prohibition Unit agent Ness and his colleagues (and sometime rivals), “The Untouchables”, to bring down legendary gangster Capone. The authors thoroughly detail how Capone rose to power, first in New York, then Chicago, becoming the head of “The Outfit”, where he ran various bootlegging operations during the Prohibition period, noting how he and Ness, both first generation sons of immigrants, sought the American Dream. But Capone’s pursuit of that dream meant crushing anything -and anybody- in his way, no matter how bloody the results. Ness, also ambitious, but believing in common decency and respect for his fellow beings, manages to eventually derail Capone. But the bloody battle between organized crime and law enforcement in Chicago would still continue, long after Capone was finally put away for tax evasion in 1931.

Collins and Schwartz provide a whole lot of meticulous documentation and details, including court transcripts, newspaper accounts, and police reports, among other sources, in depicting the dual stories of their two subjects, in the process bursting many previously held falsehoods about both. The book’s Introduction even notes how previous histories and biographies stressed the false portrait of honest, hard working and resourceful Ness as an egocentric and headline grabbing glory hound, while glorifying the evil and perfidious Capone. Those previously inaccurate depictions are pretty much debunked in this book.

There’s lots of good stuff here, including how Ness’ “Untouchables” unit broke up various Capone breweries, often risking their lives; background on the infamous 1929 “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre”; the overtly political efforts to prosecute Capone (then President Herbert Hoover especially doesn’t come off well here) that almost backfired; and implications that some of Capone’s own men (including the equally infamous Frank “The Enforcer” Nitti, referred here under his actual real surname “Nitto”) conspired to bring him down because he was bad for business! Scarface and the Untouchable is riveting from start to finish! Definitely check it out!

34 people found this helpful

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Richard B. Schwartz

Actually four and a half stars

Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2020

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Sara Paretsky offers the following as a jacket blurb: "An Extraordinary Achievement." She is correct; it is an extraordinary achievement. At the same time it is a bit of a slog. The concept for the book recalls Plutarch's famous 'parallel lives', but Capone probably receives 65-70% of the actual attention because, ultimately, he is a more interesting character than Ness.

It is said that there are two kinds of biographies—brief characters and reference works. Brief characters would include the biographies of Strachey. They are pithy, engaging, entertaining, generally brief and focused upon the essence of the biographee. The reference works aspire to be as complete as possible. A premium is placed on length, documentation, accuracy and inclusivity. A large, multi-volumed biography can also provide an incisive sense of the biographee's character, as in the Robert Caro treatment of Lyndon Johnson. In SCARFACE AND THE UNTOUCHABLE we receive a sense of the individuals' character and nature. The problem is that Ness is not nearly as interesting as he was in the Robert Stack TV series or the Brian De Palma film.

A larger problem is that the book is organized chronologically, so that when we reach a given period there has to be content. The individual periods are adjusted, of course, to focus on particularly interesting or important events, but 550 pp. of chronological narrative (supplemented by 150 pp. of supporting material) is a large meal to swallow and digest. Given the material that the authors wish to cover, their structural decisions were probably inevitable as well as appropriate, but, again, this is a slog.

There are many helpful illustrations from section to section and a very helpful rogues' gallery at the outset, which provides the portraits of the gangsters from the respective gangs and the government agents who opposed them. The book is able to be both 'popular' and scholarly. It reads well but shows attention to detail. (How many knew that Frank Nitti's actual name was Frank Nitto?)

Bottom line: an extraordinary achievement, but a book from which the reader might need to take an occasional break.

One person found this helpful

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Karen P. Rhodes

Excellent, well-researched history of both Ness and Capone

Reviewed in the United States on November 27, 2018

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I have seen other biographies of Eliot Ness, most of them consisting of "revisionist" history seeking to discredit rather than examine the Prohibition agent's career. At least one of them, which I will not name, has a bibliography which consists of a couple pages of questionable secondary sources, some of which I know to be of little reliability, and uses those sources to tear down Mr. Ness in a manner that is repugnantly self-serving. Other books on the broader subject of the history of Prohibition and the organized crime that grew out of it either dismiss Ness with a short paragraph, or ignore him altogether.

Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago is the book I have waited for, having been fascinated by the story of Eliot Ness and Al Capone since I was 12 years old, watching the 1959-1963 series on television. Most of what I have found on the subject in the intervening decades has not been satisfying.

This book by mystery writer Max Allan Collins and historian A. Brad Schwartz, is satisfying. It is meticulously-documented, using many original sources. The extensive endnotes testify to the quality of the careful research the authors have provided for us. This book examines the story and the interactions of both men in depth, with facts that debunk much of the mythology that has grown up around both. The authors' analysis of the implications inherent in Capone's criminal activity and in Ness's law enforcement efforts against it, and of the larger society in which both existed and contended, is the most cogent, deeply-sourced I have yet seen on this subject.

The writing is superb, telling a story as gripping as any fictional thriller. This is the book that sets the record straight.

16 people found this helpful

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