The Elusive Purple Gang: Detroit's Kosher Nostra is a concise history of one of America's most notorious Prohibition gangs. The Burnstein brothers and their associates were the only Jewish gang in the United States to dominate the rackets of a major American city. From their meteoric rise to the top of Detroit's underworld to their ultimate demise, this is an episodic account of the Purple Gang's corrosive pursuit of power and wealth and their inevitable plunge towards self-destruction.

The Purple Gang - Detroit's ruling organised crime syndicate - became one of the most notorious gangs during the Prohibition Era. The gang was comprised mostly of the offspring of recent immigrants - Eastern European Jews who were hardworking and honest. This vicious gang quickly rose to power by engaging in extortion, gambling and the illicit trade of drugs and alcohol. The book if graphically illustrated with 32 pages of photographs depicting the gangsters, from their lives on the street to their bloody demise.

Detroit's Infamous Purple Gang is a photographic history of one of the most notorious organized crime groups of the 20th century. The photographs chronologically follow the evolution of the Purples from their days as a juvenile street gang through their rise to power and eventual self-destruction. Using rare police department mug shots and group photographs, the book transports readers through the dark side of Prohibition-era Detroit history. Detroit had a gold rush atmosphere and a thriving black market during the 1920s that attracted gangsters and unsavory characters from all over the country.

For 14K Triad official Steven Wong, faking his own death to escape trial was easy. But evading investigative reporter Terry Gould -- impossible. For 11 years terry Gould has tracked the man known as the “paper fan” through the organized crime circles of six countries. This riveting, horrifying, yet often hilariously funny book is the story of that search, a daredevil journey through the seductions and terrors of Steve’s world. Steven Wong is the “paper fan,” a thirty-nine-year-old Hong Kong-born mobster. Raised in New York’s Chinatown, he matured into crime in Vancouver, where he founded and headed the murderous Gum Wah Gang in the late 1980s and early ’90s. In 1992, Wong “died” in a traffic accident in a remote area of the Philippines before he could be sent to jail for heroin trafficking, conveniently just after he’d taken out a million-dollar life insurance policy. His urn may still be interred in a Vancouver cemetery, but today, Interpol has a “Red Alert” arrest warrant out for Wong, and his updated file reads like a Hollywood action film -- a post-mortem panorama of organized criminal adventure that circles the Pacific Rim, from Macau to Japan, from Cambodia to the Philippines. Gould’s search takes him into a world in which politicians, police, businessmen and criminals sprint along in one big pack, sometimes nipping each other’s heels, sometimes licking each other’s faces, and sometimes inviting one another back home for all-night mah-jong parties. Forced to work according to right-side-up rules, honest cops haven’t had a chance of arresting Steve in his upside-down world. Four times, Terry Gould has traced Steven Wong through Asia’s circles of corruption and pinned him down, but the law has let him slip away. Fifth time lucky? “Gangsters are good team players who generally exhibit a locker-room familiarity with other men. Still, it surprised me when Steve answered the door on Monday wearing only his polka-dot boxers, showing off his biceps and his chest tattooed with the winged dragons and sharp-taloned eagle. He was talking on the phone and barely interrupted himself as he turned back into the house, whereupon I realized that the display was likely done on purpose. Neck to waist his back was totally covered by a stylized tableau of a dragon crawling against a background of tigers and flowers — a Triad montage no one outside his syndicate world was supposed to see.” -- from Paper Fan

Michigan Time Capsule (2023) is a nonfiction collection of sixty-two of my best Fornology.com blog posts written between 2012 and 2022. The original posts were revised for inclusion in this collection, which is a sequel to my last bookDetroit Time Capsule (2022). Most chapters cover Michigan people and places, some famous and others infamous. Other chapters have a broader scope but deserve to be in a "best of" collection. This anthology can be read cover to cover, or each chapter can be read independently with no narrative thread binding one to the other.

Detroit Time Capsule is a collection of seventy-five articles that first appeared as Fornology.com blog posts. The original posts have been revised and re-edited for inclusion in this anthology. Topics vary from significant historical events to biographical profiles of people who left their mark on Detroit history. Although this collection can be read from beginning to end, most chapters are self-contained with no narrative thread binding them. This eclectic collection makes a great springboard for readers interested in learning more about Detroit's rich past.

Baseball during the Great Depression of the 1930s galvanized communities and provided a struggling country with heroes. Jewish player Hank Greenberg gave the people of Detroit—and America—a reason to be proud. But America was facing more than economic hardship. Hitler’s agenda heightened the persecution of Jews abroad while anti-Semitism intensified political and social tensions in the U.S. The six-foot-four-inch Greenberg, the nation’s most prominent Jew, became not only an iconic ball player, but also an important and sometimes controversial symbol of Jewish identity and the American immigrant experience. Throughout his twelve-year baseball career and four years of military service, he heard cheers wherever he went along with anti-Semitic taunts. The abuse drove him to legendary feats that put him in the company of the greatest sluggers of the day, including Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, and Lou Gehrig. Hank’s iconic status made his personal dilemmas with religion versus team and ambition versus duty national debates. Hank Greenberg is an intimate account of his life—a story of integrity and triumph over adversity and a portrait of one of the greatest baseball players and most important Jews of the twentieth century. INCLUDES PHOTOS

Payoffs in the Cloakroom is a spellbinding follow-up to Rubenstein and Ziewacz's critically acclaimed Three Bullets Sealed His Lips. Three Bullets brought to life new evidence on the 1945 murder of Michigan Senator Warren Hooper. Payoffs in the Cloakroom takes up where Three Bullets left off, unraveling a complex web of political corruption and dirty state politics. In the process, the authors demonstrate that Senator Hooper was murdered to prevent his grand jury testimony against republican boss Frank McKay, who was facing bribery charges. Making use of actual court proceeding, personal interviews, and newspaper accounts, and even a re-evaluation of police evidence, Rubenstein and Ziewacz tell a story that contains all the ingredients of first-class detective fiction—only in this instance, the story is based on fact. With chapter titles such as "Charlie and His Little Black Book," "I Never Dreamed Murder," and "Them Bones, Them Bones," the authors have, once again, provided a stimulating and absorbing account of one of the darker chapters of Michigan's political history.

The spellbinding saga of Teamster boss Jackie Presser’s rise and fall In his rise from car thief to president of America’s largest labor union, Jackie Presser used every ounce of his street smarts and rough-edged charisma to get ahead. He also had a lot of help along the way—not just from his father, Bill Presser, a Teamster power broker and thrice-convicted labor racketeer, but also from the Mob and the FBI. At the same time that he was taking orders from the Cleveland Mafia and New York crime boss Fat Tony Salerno, Presser was serving as the FBI’s top informant on organized crime. Meticulously researched and dramatically told, Mobbed Up is the story of Presser’s precarious balancing act with the Teamsters, the Mafia, and the Justice Department. Drawing on thousands of pages of classified files, James Neff follows the trail of greed, corruption, and hubris all the way to the Nixon and Reagan White Houses, where Bill and Jackie Presser were treated as valued friends. Winner of an Investigative Reporters & Editors Award for best reporting on organized crime, it is a tale too astonishing to be made up—and too troubling to be ignored.

Discover the most fascinating crimes committed between two of the greatest wars ever fought, from America’s first train robbery by the Reno brothers in 1866, to alleged killings at the H. H. Holmes Murder Castle in 1893, to the Rumrich Nazi spy case in 1938, and much more. The era from the end of the Civil War to the beginning of World War II was a dynamic and evolving time for murderers, thieves, gangsters and more. Train robberies, presidential assassinations, high-profile heists, and serial murders are just a selection of what occurred between the 1860s and the 1930s. Between Two Wars: A True Crime Collection includes a curated mix of both familiar and less-infamous cases. Tour through the carnage of 1880s Chicago as H.H. Holmes builds his Murder Castle. Learn about the significance of the less famous presidential assassination of the 1800s—of President James Garfield. At the turn of the century, find out why the theft of the Mona Lisa made the piece the famous work of art it is today, and discover the impact of the Black mafia with John “Mushmouth” Johnson, the infamous “Negro Gambling King of Chicago.” The full list of cases includes: - (1866) The Reno brothers and the first train robbery in America - (1878) George Leslie, a high society bank robber - (1881) Assassination of President James Garfield - (1893) H.H. Holmes Murder Castle and the Columbian Exposition - (1890s –1907) John “Mushmouth” Johnson, the “Negro Gambling King of Chicago” - (1911) The theft of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa - (1926) Disappearance of Agatha Christie - (1933) Kansas City Massacre - (1938) Rumrich Nazi Spy Case Written for murderinos, true crime junkies, and history buffs, Between Two Wars reads like you’re having a conversation with a friend or listening to your favorite true crime podcast.