Tom & Lucky (and George & Cokey Flo)
A Novel
-
- $17.99
-
- $17.99
Publisher Description
The year is 1936. Charles "Lucky" Luciano is the most powerful gangster in America. Thomas E. Dewey is an ambitious young prosecutor hired to bring him down, and Cokey Flo Brown--grifter, heroin addict, and sometimes prostitute--is the witness who claims she can do it. Only a wily defense attorney named George Morton Levy stands between Lucky and a life behind bars, between Dewey and the New York governor's mansion.
As the Roaring Twenties give way to the austere reality of the Great Depression, four lives, each on its own incandescent trajectory, intersect in a New York courtroom, introducing America to the violent and darkly glamorous world of organized crime and leaving our culture, laws, and politics forever changed.
Based on a trove of newly discovered documents, Tom & Lucky (and George & Cokey Flo) tells the true story of a singular trial in American history: an epic clash between a crime-busting district attorney and an all-powerful mob boss who, in the crucible of a Manhattan courtroom, battle for the heart and soul of a dispirited nation. Blending elements of political thriller, courtroom drama, and hard-boiled pulp, author C. Joseph Greaves introduces readers to the likes of Al Capone, Dutch Schultz, Meyer Lansky, and Bugsy Siegel while taking readers behind the scenes of a corrupt criminal justice system in which sinners may be saints and heroes may prove to be the biggest villains of all.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this historical crime novel, Greaves (Hard Twisted) sets four real-life Jazz Age figures on a collision course. We witness Sicilian immigrant Salvatore Lucania becoming New York mobster legend Charlie "Lucky" Luciano; Nassau County lawyer George Morton Levy growing a reputation for being a peerless defense attorney; ambitious Thomas E. Dewey being named special prosecutor for New York County, with an eye on the governor's mansion; and Cokey Flo Brown, a grifter, madame, and heroin addict, running a brothel in New York City. After a long preamble, the story settles down in 1936, when Dewey tries to use Cokey Flo's testimony to bust Luciano, who hires Levy for his defense. The novel begins with cinematic scenes that crisply encapsulate the personalities of its four main characters. But in relating so much early mob history, the author seems to be merely recycling elements already familiar from The Cotton Club and Boardwalk Empire. And once Luciano's trial gets underway, the narrative becomes much too reliant on actual court transcripts. The trial itself is not especially dramatic and ends on an anticlimactic note, which buries the author's thesis: that the verdict was ultimately based on Luciano and Dewey switching roles, with the former acting like a gentleman in court and the later making like a gangster behind the scenes. There are some flashes of snappy dialogue, and the setting is nicely evoked, but the writing is too flat and never fully takes off.
