Shoe Town

by T.J. Birkenmeier

On the eve of St. Patrick's Day in 1931, the tranquility of the St. Louis' elegant Compton Heights neighborhood was shattered by a horrific double murder in Tower Grove Park. The victims were the son and heir of one of the City's founding families and an unidentified much younger woman, who was not his wife. Both were brutally murdered in the back seat of his custom-built Madame X model 1930 Cadillac. Shoe Town is the story of the earthquake created by those murders and the aftershocks that would resonate from back alley bootlegging to the Easy Streets of St. Louis Society, and from the smoky backrooms of Missouri politics to the very heights of Democrat party Presidential politics. When an order of nuns turns over a reporter's personal journals that they've been safeguarding for 100 years to a 2031 female news anchor the dark and dirty story of the Tower Grove Park murders and the way St. Louis really worked in the days of The Irish Enterprises finally comes to light. Learn the dark secrets as you also come to understand the wisdom contained in the words of The King of Kerry, Thomas Edward Culhane who observed... "You don't win poker with cards. You win it with balls. It's just like real life."

445 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[R. II · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are old enough, or perhaps remember what your grandfather told you on the side, this is a dark history of the St. Louis story. While not many want to admit it this is filled with many true stories. Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.

[Jan Daker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was I surprised........I couldn't put the book down.
The author took articles from the 1931 St.Louis newspapers to create an extremely fascinating murder mystery. St. Louis' own John Grisham has now arrived! Now I keep wondering what is true & what could be true.
This is Birk's first book & a sign of good things to come.