The Ogden Gas Affair represented the biggest political scandal of Chicago's first sixty years. Mayor John P. Hopkins and Democratic Party boss Roger Sullivan conspired with ten other insiders to form a dummy corporation to blackmail Peoples Gas Company. The scam poured money into the coffers of beneficiaries who were never prosecuted, including the governor of Illinois, John P. Altgeld. As their lengthy swindle ran its course, Hopkins and Sullivan rubbed elbows with the most notorious grafters of the robber baron era, including Charles Yerkes and "Big Bill" Thompson. Author John Hogan follows the money in a scheme that became a template for the enrichment of the connected at the expense of the citizenry.

Contaminated drinking water killed thousands of Chicago's original citizens, so the city took the unprecedented step of digging a tunnel two miles long and 30 feet below lake bottom. Since the facilities on shore included an unsightly 138-foot vertical pipe, famed architect William Boyington concealed it with a limestone, castle-like tower that soon became a celebrated landmark. Through the first 150 years of its existence, Chicago's iconic Water Tower has survived the Great Fire-the only public structure in the burn zone to do so-and at least four attempts at demolition. John Hogan pays tribute to the beloved monument that accompanied the evolution of Michigan Avenue from cowpath to Magnificent Mile.

"Sperber. . .tackles the details, great and small, unearthing a treasure." —New York Times Book Review Shake Down the Thunder traces the history of the Notre Dame football program—which has acquired almost mythical proportions—from its humble origins in the 19th century to its status as the paragon of college sports. It presents the true story of the program's formative years, the reality behind the myths. Both social history and sports history, this book documents as never before the first half-century of Notre Dame football and relates it to the rise of big-time intercollegiate athletics, the college sports reform movement, and the corrupt sporting press of the period. Shake Down the Thunder is must reading for all Fighting Irish fans, their detractors, and any reader engaged by American cultural history.

This book was written as a tribute to all the agents who were assigned to Criminal Squad #1, more commonly referred to as the C-1 Squad, of the Chicago Division of the FBI from 1957 to 1976, a period of nineteen years. These agents were pioneers, who were required to wage war against one of the most powerfully entrenched organized crime organizations in the country since the days of Al Capone. It was at a time when the FBI did not have all the tools or legislation necessary to combat organized crime but they accomplished their goals aggressively with whatever means were available. This is a story of the unique challenges confronting these dedicated agents and the incomparable results achieved which resulted in severely disrupting and curtailing the activities of the Chicago mob. Mr. Inserra also chronicles parts of his career prior to and following his FBI experiences.

Jesse Jackson is a modern day highway robber, says veteran investigative reporter Kenneth R. Timmerman, who uses cries of racism to steal from individuals, corporations, and government, to give to himself. Until now, however, no one has been brave enough to say it and diligent enough to prove it. But Ken Timmerman has cracked Jackson's machine, found Jackson cronies willing to break ranks, and uncovered a sordid tale of greed, ambition, and corruption from a self-proclaimed minister who has no qualms about poisoning American race relations for personal gain.

Mary Lee Coe Fowler was a posthumous child, born after her father, a submarine skipper in the Pacific, was lost at sea in 1943. She set out to learn not only who her father was, but what happened to him and his crew, and why. This memoir reveals what she eventually learned, which includes the perils and hardships of submarine service in wartime.

At the tail end of the Roaring Twenties, a birthday bash for publishing heir John Sebastian, Jr., perfectly coincides with the twelve days of Christmas. Among the twelve invited guests is Ellery Queen, a newly published mystery writer planning to enjoy every last minute. But when an uninvited Santa Claus shows up on Christmas Eve and then mysteriously goes missing, the party takes a disturbing turn. Threatening clues masked as gifts begin to appear under the tree, and Queen - a novice crime fighter on his first solo case - must try to solve the killer's puzzle before someone gets murdered. After a dead body turns up, Queen is no closer to stopping the killer. If he can’t anticipate the next clue before it shows up, John Sebastian’s birthday will end up his funeral.

Well-meaning American civilians make an attempt at nation-building during the Vietnam War, in this “powerful” novel by a National Book Award finalist (Newsweek). Named one of the Best Books of the Year by Time and the Los Angeles Times In this “extraordinary,” beautifully constructed large-canvas novel of Saigon in 1965, Ward Just takes a penetrating look into America’s role in the world (The New York Times). Sydney Parade, a political scientist, has left his home and family in an effort to become part of something larger than himself, a foreign aid operation in the South Vietnamese capital. Even before he arrives, he encounters French and Americans who reveal to him the unsettling depths of a conflict he thought he understood—and in Saigon, the Vietnamese add yet another dimension. Before long, the rampant missteps and misplaced ideals trap Parade and others in a moral crossfire. “Emotionally wrenching and always beautifully observant,” this is a story of conscience and its consequences among those for whom Vietnam was neither the right fight nor the wrong fight but the only fight (Entertainment Weekly). The exotic tropical surroundings, coarsening and corrupting effects of a colonial regime, and visionary delusions of the American democratizers all play their part. “A literary triumph that transcends its war story” and a New York Times Notable Book, A Dangerous Friend can be justly compared to Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo or Graham Greene’s The Quiet American—a thrilling narrative roiling with intrigue, mayhem, and betrayal (San Francisco Chronicle). “Makes you want to run screaming into the street to protest retrospectively the war he has so movingly recreated.” —The New York Times