When her husband was murdered on the orders of Chicago mobster Frank Nitti, Georgette Winkeler―wife of one of Al Capone's "American Boys"―set out to expose the Chicago Syndicate. After an attempt to publish her story was squelched by the mob, she offered it to the FBI in the mistaken belief that they had the authority to strike at the racketeers who had killed her husband Gus. Discovered 60 years later in FBI files, the manuscript describes the couple’s life on the run, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre (Gus was one of the shooters), and other headline crimes of that period. Prepared for publication by mob expert William J. Helmer, Al Capone and His American Boys is a compelling contemporary account of the heyday of Chicago crime by a woman who found herself married to the mob.

Al Capone and His American Boys: Memoirs of a Mobster's Wife

History

Helmer, William J.

Americas

Indiana University Press

When her husband was murdered on the orders of Chicago mobster Frank Nitti, Georgette Winkeler—wife of one of Al Capone's "American Boys"—set out to expose the Chicago Syndicate. After an attempt to publish her story was squelched by the mob, she offered it to the FBI in the mistaken belief that they had the authority to strike at the racketeers who had killed her husband Gus. Discovered 60 years later in FBI files, the manuscript describes the couple’s life on the run, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre (Gus was one of the shooters), and other headline crimes of that period. Prepared for publication by mob expert William J. Helmer, Al Capone and His American Boys is a compelling contemporary account of the heyday of Chicago crime by a woman who found herself married to the mob.

Public Enemies: America's Criminal Past, 1919-1940

Examines the gangsters, outlaws, and notorious crimes of the Prohibition and Depression years, revealing the evolution of American law enforcement in an era of lawlessness

Mattix, Rick

FACTS ON FILE+

Details the legendary criminals that roamed the country during the 1920s and 1930s and their counterparts in law enforcement, dispels many of the myths about America's most infamous criminals, and charts the rise of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. Simultaneous.

Checkmark Books

"The thesis evolved into the first “biographical-history” of General Thompson and the submachine gun that was published by the Macmillan Company as The Gun That Made The Twenties Roar. It received favorable reviews in Newsweek, The Washington Post’s book section, and more than a dozen newspapers that had book columns at the time. (A few years later a photocopied edition of the original book was printed by Gun Room Press to accompany a longer-barreled semi-automatic version Thompson then being marketed by Numrich Arms, and it included an additional chapter on the Numrich gun by George Nonte that is not included in this second edition.)Since then any number of books and articles have retold the Thompson story, but the only one that greatly expands on this edition, especially in manufacturing details, is The Ultimate Thompson Book, published in 2009 by Tracie Hill, founder of The American Thompson Association. I want to thank Tracie for most of the additional photos that appear in this edition. I also want to thank David Albert, former president of TATA, for putting me in touch with Chipotle Publishing Company which presents this second edition, one hundred years after the founding of the Auto-Ordnance Corporation. It is expanded with “boxes” and an additional chapter that updates the original book that was published in 1969."

The Gun That Made The 20's Roar

Military

Chipotle Publishing

Lester Joseph Gillis -- better known to the public and press of the 1930s as Baby Face Nelson -- was one of a succession of public enemies beginning with John Dillinger and progressing to Bonnie and Clyde, Ma Barker, Machine Gun Kelly, and Pretty Boy Floyd. For decades their stories were largely myths, containing a combination of popular folklore and carefuly crafted FBI fables.
In recent years historians have generated a more factual look at the life and times of the various Depression-era desperados. Until now Baby Face Nelson has remained as enigmatic and one-dimensional as he was then, portrayed by J. Edgar Hoover and newsmen as a trigger-happy punk who looked like a choirboy and killed without a conscience. Finally the full story of his short life can be told.
Using new information that comes from the formerly classified files of the FBI, the Nelson who emerges from the pages of Baby Face Nelson: Portrait of a Public Enemy is a more paradoxical and interesting figure than one might expect. Obviously addicted to crime in his youth and evidently intoxicated with violence near the end of his life, he came from an ordinary, honest middle-class family. In a surprising departure from the gangster norm, Nelson and his wife remained fiercely devoted to one another, and between holdups they often lived a quiet domestic life with their two children and, at times, Nelson's mother.
The main focus of this biography is on Nelson's remarkable criminal career, from sensational bank robberies and blazing gun battles up to his death at the age of twenty-five. Many misconceptions are corrected and some of the abuses of the FBI are exposed.

Baby Face Nelson: Portrait of a Public Enemy

Biographies & Memoirs

Nickel, Steven

Historical

Cumberland House Publishing

Looks at gangland's "crime of the century," and offers a new assessment of the role of Al Capone in the machine-gun murders of seven men on the morning of February 14, 1929, by killers dressed as policemen.

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre: The Untold Story of the Gangland Bloodbath That Brought Down Al Capone

Bilek, Arthur J.

Cumberland House

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, and it challenges the commonly held assumption that Al Capone ordered the slayings to gain supremacy in the Chicago underworld.""

True Crime

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Helmer, William J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Helmer, William J.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Helmer, William J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Al Capone and His American Boys: Memoirs of a Mobster's Wife

Al Capone and His American Boys: Memoirs of a Mobster's Wife

Public Enemies: America's Criminal Past, 1919-1940

Public Enemies: America's Criminal Past, 1919-1940

The Gun That Made The 20's Roar

Baby Face Nelson: Portrait of a Public Enemy

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre: The Untold Story of the Gangland Bloodbath That Brought Down Al Capone

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre: The Untold Story of the Gangland Bloodbath That Brought Down Al Capone

Baby Face Nelson: Portrait of a Public Enemy

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre: The Untold Story of the Gangland Bloodbath That Brought Down Al Capone