Untouchable Chicago: A Ride Through Prohibition

by Don Fielding

Your ride through prohibition begins in the early 1920's. Here are the stories of Al Capone, Diamond Jim, Johnny "The Fox", Bugs Moran, Colosimo, Dion O'Bannion, Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn, just to name a few. The book concludes at the end of prohibition and also features police documents from witnesses of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, and files from the U.S. Treasury Department.

Genres: Nonfiction

108 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Sarah Gibbons · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this book in 2011 when I was in Chicago on the Untouchable gangster tour and I’ve never read it until today. It’s an interesting insight into Al Capone, prohibition etc, but it is written in a very amateurish way. It annoyed me some chapters repeated information we’d already read a few chapters earlier.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

My husband and I visited Chicago and attended The Untouchables tour and was entertained by the bus crew as we traveled back to the Prohibition era in the Roaring Twenties. The experience to see the places in person was really neat. We enjoyed it.

Now for the book... I felt the Tour itself did a much better job with depicting history in a skit-type fashion rather than written in a book. Why? The writing style and the outline of content was inconsistent.

It starts out going through each gangster one by one relating history to a point, stopping, then the book switches to chronologically arranging content, only to go back and jump around in history. I found it difficult to follow and at one point, the same event was written 3 times in this bundle of 108 pages.

At times, the author would voice an opinion and switch between factual to a storyteller prose which caught me off-guard. In a way, the only pieces that did make sense were the events we talked about on the tour, otherwise, I would be disoriented in what I was reading.

I do give kudos for the research and time put in for tracking down grisly photographs, crime-scene witness statements, etc that makes it very “real”. I do wish there was a bit more written about the actual “Untouchables” with Eliot Ness because although the book and tour are called thus; the actual history depicted is more pre-Untouchables with the rise and fall of Alphonse “Al” Capone.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nonfiction and a bit dry, I enjoyed the stories but I had a hard time connecting the gangsters together but it is old and true, not really my style but informative and packed with crime. Im glad I read it, it had been on my shelf too long. Honestly I enjoyed the gangster tour in Chicago that the book was based on much more.

[Wally Cwik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good snapshot of of the hoods of the past.

[Earl Pike · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book serves as a decent primer on the criminal history of Chicago. Quite un-academic but very readable. I picked this up after taking "The Untouchables" tour in Chicago. Book is written by one of the guides. The book gives local flavor to local history and is written as such. Decent and enjoyable but not deep. Many images in the book make visualizations easy.

[David Earle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was written by the operator of a bus tour through some of Chicago's famous mob locations. The writing can be a bit uneven, but the book provides a good overview of Chicago's mob history during Prohibition.

[R. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this book on the Untouchables Bus Tour in Chicago.