Karen Abbott - The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, the Women Who Pursued Him, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz-Age America
Believed to have been the model for Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby, George Remus (1874-1952) made millions during Prohibition by exploiting a loophole that allowed him to buy up distilleries and sell bonded liquor “for medicinal purposes.” After a stint in prison, he gained further notoriety when he shot his second wife as she was on her way to the courthouse to divorce him. In her vivid account of the 1927 trial that riveted Jazz-Age America, Abbott, author of Sin in the Second City and Liar Temptress Soldier Spy, recounts Remus’s lucrative scheme, follows the intrepid woman prosecutor who put him away, and unknots the love triangle that sealed several fates.