Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series by David PietruszaMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I'm surprised I hadn't heard of this book earlier. This is an excellent biography of Arnold Rothstein, with plenty of background information that had me heading to Wikipedia to look up other characters, places, events, etc.
It's consintently fascinating how he was able to swindle people, find other swindlers, and swindle other swindlers.
I liked how, when his partner in the card game decided to run away with the week's profits, he allowed the partner to keep it and run away, acting like he'd been bested, knowing that now he would be the sole owner of the most lucrative card game in the area.
Betting heavy against his own horse, which was favored to win, was genius. When he saw there was a taker, he knew it must have been a fix (and then it turns out he may have gotten in on the whole thing regardless).
When the unions were striking against the corporate bosses, AR provided thugs and strongmen to both sides.
He tipped a cop off when his own employee (Diamond) was smuggling drugs, to get on the cop's good side. Then he placated Diamond by cutting him in on a drug deal with Lowenstein, the 3rd richest man in the world.
It's also interesting how many mobster nicknames from movies and TV were used by real mobsters: Beansie, Nick the Greek, and there was even another "Lucky Charlie".
Wilson Mizner's one-liners were a treat: "Be nice to people on the way up because you'll meet the same people on the way down", "Don't talk about yourself; it will be done when you leave.", When asked by a judge if he was showing contempt to the court he replied "No Your Honor, I'm trying to conceal my contempt".
All in all, I am deeply impressed with AR, as well as with the author's ability to wade through all the information from the time, given that so much of it was so secretive (he is very open about all the contradictory and odd information, and how he put it together).
Could someone now please come up with a definitive biography of Carlo Gambino??
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