96 years after his death, Big Jack Zelig finally takes the stand

Lieutenant Charles Becker headed a special police squad whose main purpose was to eradicate the city's gangs. But when he was arrested in July 1912 for the murder of gambler Herman Rosenthal, the only one who could prove his innocence was the most powerful gangster in the city: Jack Zelig. Although the police were his natural enemies, Zelig would not let an innocent man be executed. But two days before the onset of Becker's trial, Zelig was murdered under mysterious circumstances on a Second Avenue streetcar. His evidence died with him... temporarily.

The Starker: Big Jack Zelig, the Becker-Rosenthal Case, and the Advent of the Jewish Gangster revisits a controversial case that was the 1912 equivalent of the O.J. Simpson affair. It also chronicles the rise of the twentieth century's first great Jewish gang lord, who turned street crime into big business. The exculpatory evidence that Zelig intended to give at Becker's trial is published for the first time in this book, which crime historian Rick Mattix called "a true crime classic and a virtual time trip to 1912."

Author Rose Keefe is the author of Guns and Roses: the Untold Story of Dean O'Banion and The Man Who Got Away: the Bugs Moran Story. She appears regularly on television and radio specials about America's gangster past.

For further information, to request a copy for review, or to contact the author for an interview, please refer to the following information:

Turner Publishing Company
Website: http://www.turnerpublishing.com/
E-mail: marketing@turnerpublishing.com
Telephone: (615) 255-2665
Author homepage http://www.rosekeefe.com