December 24, 1930. That evening, Hap Levinson, a minor criminal, took on the role of Santa Claus at the Sackman Orphan Home. He distributed toys and ice cream to the children there. Stepping outside to bid farewell, he was instantly gunned …

Joe Lassiter was considered the most valuable asset in the entire bootlegging operation. He and his companion, Nick Karabinos, had just arrived in Chicago by train; Lassiter had journeyed a thousand miles for a deal worth two hundred and fi…

By mid-June of 1932, Eliot Ness and his Untouchables had systematically dismantled every champagne-producing enterprise within the city limits. Yet, just four months later, the sparkling wine reappeared in the city's upscale Westside nightc…

Chicago, Summer 1932. Twelve million Americans are jobless, and with diminished purchasing power, the price of liquor has fallen. The whiskey Syndicate convenes; its chairman is Vincent Tunis, a man who effectively controls the city. His th…

Chicago, December 18, 1930. In a dimly lit, rundown pool hall on the southside, Herbie Catcher is hustling eight-ball for fifty cents a game. Not a skilled player, Herbie is thoroughly defeated by Cooker and loses his money. His closest com…

December 12, 1929. That night, gangster Arnie Kurtz sat in his car, observing the execution he had orchestrated. A vehicle, accelerating rapidly and with a barrage of gunfire, struck a pedestrian. Yet, the victim, even as he fell, drew a we…

Chicago, a city still reeling from the aftermath of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, February 14th, 1929. Ness and his team are systematically searching the streets for Bugs Moran. Ness observes that the city was once divided between two g…

The year is 1929. Infamous gangster Charlie Radick is succumbing to leukemia. His demise will be met not with sorrow, but with a ruthless power struggle among his rivals. All Radick desires now is a final glimpse of his daughter. Ness visit…

July 4th, 1930. Arlington Park teemed with forty thousand horse racing enthusiasts. Ness and his team maintained surveillance on Arnold "Spats" Vincent, poised to intercept him the moment he acquired the document: a list detailing high-rank…

The year was 1929. Chicago. Fifteen years on the force, and now Mike Brannon faced suspension for actions taken in a hospital ward – actions involving one of Tony Lamberto's small-time dealers. Brannon felt a bitter resentment towards Capta…

Chicago, October 1932. Moments after the Globe's chief reporter, Carlton Edmunds, was shot, Eliot Ness and his men arrived at the scene. The initial impression was that a stray bullet from a gunfight had struck Edmunds; he was, it seemed, m…

June of 1930. Louie Akers, owner of Speak, faced imminent closure. Guzik’s three-week-long failure to supply him with liquor had left him with no choice but to seek an alternative source. Akers paid Johnny $1,142 for barrels of beer and cas…

June of 1929. A body is discovered in Lake Michigan. Retrieved three to four weeks later, on July 10th, it presents the Bureau of Missing Persons with a John Doe. Lieutenant Agatha Stewart and her partner, Frank Benson, are assigned to the …

The year was 1929. Eliot Ness received yet another anonymous phone call: a significant gathering was planned at a warehouse on Grover Street, with Nitti and his associates expected to attend. Inside the warehouse, approximately twenty men w…

October 16, 1930. Jackson Parker, a minor player in the liquor trade, relied on his lieutenant Benny to deliver bottles of illicit alcohol to locations on college campuses: student unions, fraternity houses. Parker was arrogant, informing B…

The summer of 1930, late and heavy, witnessed the emergence of a peculiar affliction in Wichita, Kansas: a pronounced, unsteady walk known as the Jake Dance. (One might observe a man moving with a pronounced stagger, supported by a cane hel…

The Jazz Age blossomed in the nineteen twenties. It is now 1930, and on Chicago’s Gold Coast, a nightclub named “Goose Gander’s Golden Egg” pulses with the rhythm of jazz. Eddie Moon, a blues musician, wails on his cornet with the band. A c…

The year was 1933. Prohibition had ended, yet for Eliot Ness and his Untouchables, the fight against organized crime was far from finished. The criminal syndicate had already shifted its focus to a more lucrative—and perilous—enterprise: na…

Spring, 1931. Chicago. That night, Ness and his men pursued a man smuggling whiskey for Solly Girsch, pushing their vehicle to eighty miles per hour. The nineteen-year-old driver, caught in the desperate chase, crashed, his car overturning …

The year is 1931. A dead-end street on Chicago’s Southside hides more than just scrap metal: it’s the façade for a narcotics empire controlled by the gangster Victor Salazar. Ness and his men have been systematically disrupting Salazar's op…

January of 1932. Al Remp, a minor player in the bootlegging trade, is spending three years of a sentence that carries a maximum of five. His parole hearing is scheduled for the following week, yet prospects appear bleak. He’s been placed in…

Gus Ducek, a man deeply entrenched in racketeering, was marked for elimination. However, as the vehicle carrying his would-be assassins approached, Ducek’s own men unleashed a barrage of machine-gun fire, reversing the intended outcome. One…

The New Jersey waterfront, 1933. Johnny Mizo had been marked for death by the American crime syndicate; he had fled to Brazil. Now, he had returned to America to retrieve the $200,000 he'd hastily hidden in a safe house before his escape. T…

The first of February, 1933. Late into the night, John "The Cropper" Cropsie, enforcer for Jules Flack, head of the Westside combine, stood in the shadowed alley behind the Lido Burlesque house, near the stagedoor entrance. He fired shots i…

Chicago, April 28, 1932. Three thousand five hundred spectators fill the arena, witnessing the conclusion of a seven-day bicycle race. Unbeknownst to them, Ed "Duke" Monte is present for a clandestine exchange. Ness and Lee Hobson intercept…

June 25, 1933. Ness and Lee Hobson are summoned to the Castle, a sprawling estate on the outskirts of Chicago that serves as both headquarters and residence for Frank Argos, the notorious "King" of the underworld—a man from whom Ness has lo…

The summer of 1931 was relentless, and Ness and his team labored without respite against the tide of bootleg whiskey and the insidious narcotics poisoning the city. One sweltering morning, Captain Jim Johnson, his spirits heavy, sought out …

April 3, 1931. Vic's Diner, nestled close to the Chicago railroad yards; outwardly unremarkable save for a hundred other establishments of its kind. The blue plate special costs thirty-five cents – a nickel could purchase either a hamburger…

January 1933 in Chicago. A prominent sign announces Danceland: "Thirty girls, open until two a.m." Inside, patrons move amongst the dancers available for a dime per dance. Hoofer Ellie Haskell bids goodnight to the owner, Marty Pulaski; mom…

May 14, 1931. Eliot Ness and his team observed a discernible exodus of the city’s highest-ranking figures. Frank Nitti had departed for Atlantic City, and Bugs Moran and Jack Diamond had followed suit. As Ness remarked, “The rats are leavin…