Review: Al Capone's Beer Wars: A Complete History of Organized Crime in Chicago During Prohibition

Al Capone's Beer Wars: A Complete History of Organized Crime in Chicago During Prohibition by John J. Binder
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The sheer volume of research that went into this book is amazing. The author constantly pulls in new people – criminals, kingpins, government officials, law enforcement -- often giving a paragraph or two description of the person and their connection to the story, and often followed by the details of their killing. It is numbing in volume. And buildings – you get cross streets addresses for many of the scenes of action, be it a gangland killing, a warehouse for illegal beer, a distillery, a brothel, or a hideout. And there are statistics, with ratios showing the ebb and flow of crime in the city and near suburbs. There was truly too much content here to make this a wholly readable and enjoyable book, but the author attempted to organize these facts into a roughly chronological narrative. I found the narrative did bounce back and forth in time too often to keep track, but I appreciated the attempt.

The author also included many, many interesting facts, thrown in to counter-balance the statistics that would otherwise overwhelm the narrative, sometimes with some personality. Talking about hoodlums visiting their Northern suburbs headquarters with their new machine guns: “They practice shooting targets there with a machine gun – and accidentally hit the occasional farmer.” I appreciated the depth of reporting, including organized crime before the beer wars of the twenties. There is also in-depth coverage of historic brothels throughout the city, as well as city politicians. Having lived in Chicagoland for 30 years, I found the details of the addresses interesting, not realizing the historic uses of some of the real estate that I have passed by every day. I listened to this on audio, and I could almost hear the voice of John “Bulldog” Drummond, local reporter who specialized in organized crime stories for decades. The narrator had a bit of his cadence.

Overall, likely a very good reference work, and a good narrative of Chicago organized crime from Capone’s 1920s and before.


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