&“An engrossing look inside Al Capone's murderous ranks.&” &–Kirkus Almost before the gunsmoke from the St. Valentine's Day Massacre cleared, Chicago police had a suspect: &“Machine Gun&” Jack McGurn. They just couldn't find him. But two weeks later police found McGurn and his paramour, Louise May Rolfe, holed up at the Stevens Hotel. Both claimed they were in bed on the morning of the shootings, a titillating alibi that grabbed the public's attention and never let go. Chicago Valentines is one of the most outrageous stories of the Capone era, a twin biography of a couple who defined the extremes and excesses of the Prohibition era in America. McGurn was a prizefighter, professional-level golfer, and the ultimate urban predator and hit man who put the iron in Al Capone's muscle. Rolfe, a beautiful blond dancer and libertine, was the epitome of fashion, rebellion, and wild abandon in a decade that shocked and roared. Every newspaper in the country followed their ongoing story. They were the most spellbinding subject of the new jazz subculture, an unforgettable duo who grabbed headlines and defined the exciting gangland world of 1920s Chicago. The story of Jack McGurn and Louise Rolfe, two lovers caught in history's spotlight, is more fascinating than any fiction. They were the prototypes for eighty years of gangster literature and cinema, representing a time that never loses its allure. Jeffrey Gusfield, a native Chicagoan, researched the history of Jack McGurn, Louise Rolfe, and the Capone years for more than four decades.

It’s always been Mimi Rousseau’s dream to open her own bistro, but it seems beyond her grasp since she’s been chased back home to Nouvelle Vie in Napa Valley by her late husband’s tremendous debt. Until her best friend Jorianne James introduces her to entrepreneur Bryan Baker who invests in promising prospects. Now, working the bistro and inn until she’s able to pay it off and call it her own, Mimi is throwing the inn’s first wedding ever. The wedding will be the talk of the town, as famous talk show host Angelica Edmonton, daughter of Bryan’s half-brother, Edison, has chosen the inn as her perfect venue. Anxious, Mimi is sure things are going to turn south, especially when Edison gets drunk and rowdy at the out-of-towners’ dinner, but by the evening, things begin to look up again. That is until six AM rolls around, and Bryan is found dead at the bistro with an éclair stuffed in his mouth. And the fingers point at Mimi, whose entire loan is forgiven in Bryan’s will. Now it’s up to Mimi to clear her name and get to the bottom of things before the killer turns up the heat again in A Deadly Éclair, the scrumptious series debut by Agatha Award-winning author Daryl Wood Gerber.

Jenny Jones was an orphan. There were painfully few safety nets in our society for young, orphaned females, Jenny married not a man of choice but for desperate need. When the alcoholic husband died in the bootleg war, leaving her with an infant son she was drawn into a private war- one of survival in a hostile world. Her son grown to manhood entered that world too. If there was one thing that both sought out of life, it was true love. Circumstances drew mother and son close together. The neighborhood would frown if they had openly showed their affection for each other. Long before Tom Brokaw, A.J. Ciulla knew that his generation was the greatest in the history of our republic. The three decades that encompass the duration of Dark Passions are those that molded the character of the nation. The book is by no means meant to glorify the past. The warts and beauty marks are evenly distributed. This is not A.J. Ciulla the short story writer. Dark Passions is a hard-hitting with no holds barred novel.

Weston and Turner, novice private detectives, are plunged into a nightmare world of murder when they are hired by a young millionairess to solve the triple murder of her family, a crime the police failed to solve more than eleven years ago. As they delve deeper into the case, they soon discover a hired assassin is always one step ahead of them and someone will do anything to stop them learning the terrible truth behind the crime, even if it means bumping off their witnesses. Not only does family man Freddie have to risk his life on behalf of their client, his personal problems are compounded by threats to his daughter's safety. And when he discovers the hired gunman's boss is the mysterious Eclipse, his investigations take him on a mad dash to Poland, and he becomes involved in a race against time to prevent another murder, one for which he is willing to risk everything, even his own life.